tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-54258349702159235052024-03-05T21:40:33.314-08:00soundimageplusdavidmartynhugheshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13254354021575778255noreply@blogger.comBlogger1275125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5425834970215923505.post-52242505808024958712012-04-15T02:16:00.000-07:002012-04-15T21:51:26.106-07:00Fuji X-Pro 1 - More on the raw file workaround<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/6932972528/" title="_DSF6790 by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="_DSF6790" height="333" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7118/6932972528_1c87b1c836.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">I've been doing some more work on the raw file workaround that I wrote about yesterday. </div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><a href="http://soundimageplus.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/fuji-x-pro-1-adobe-camera-raw.html">http://soundimageplus.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/fuji-x-pro-1-adobe-camera-raw.html</a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">This produces sharper images for me than either the out of camera jpgs. or using the Silkypix / Fuji software. In fact with a combination of this and a slight boost in saturation and contrast, I was able to produce files that resembled those from a certain hand built German camera, very closely indeed.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">One extra thing I had to do was make sure that the highlight protection in Silkypix was at its maximum, as the Fuji X-Pro 1 does have a tendency to produce blown highlights. </div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">The other thing that I noticed was that when I developed the files using the Super Neutral preset, at 100% there was some slight moire present, though this was easily removable in Adobe Camera Raw. </div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">Though this is a process which adds time to raw file conversion, certainly the finished files I get do look more like the files I have obtained from other sensors that have no AA filter. While the jpgs. from the X-PRO 1 are undeniably very good indeed, until now using this process, I hadn't seen that lovely 3-D crispness that it so evident from the Leica M9 and the Sigma Foveon sensor. Now its there and the images on my screen look very good indeed.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">There is a very slight amount of luminance noise that occurs because of the extra sharpening I use, but overall the files look great. When I factor in the great high ISO performance from this sensor, then it is indeed a serious contender for the accolade of the best digital sensor. So far!!</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/7079046913/" title="_DSF6944_1 by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="_DSF6944_1" height="500" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5346/7079046913_8363469240.jpg" width="333" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/6932972874/" title="_DSF6988 by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="_DSF6988" height="500" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5196/6932972874_ee8b4d6c36.jpg" width="333" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/7079047181/" title="_DSF7024 by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="_DSF7024" height="500" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7191/7079047181_53c612a3f2.jpg" width="333" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/6932973158/" title="kencas_Panorama2 by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="kencas_Panorama2" height="500" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7214/6932973158_05f5379e9a.jpg" width="333" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>N.B. to see more on the cameras and lenses featured in this post click on the relevant labels (tags and keywords) below.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><i>All original material on this blog is © Soundimageplus</i><br /><i>For comment and discussion - join us over at Google+</i><br /><i><a href="https://plus.google.com/104558599624253816184/posts">https://plus.google.com/104558599624253816184/posts</a></i><br /><br /><i>soundimageplus website - <a href="http://web.me.com/davidmartynhughes/Site/home.html" target="_blank">http://web.me.com/davidmartynhughes/Site/home.html </a></i><br /><i>follow on twitter - <a href="http://twitter.com/#%21/soundimageplus">http://twitter.com/#!/soundimageplus</a></i><br /><i>follow on facebook - <a href="http://www.facebook.com/soundimageplus">http://www.facebook.com/soundimageplus</a></i><br /><i>soundimageplus on flickr - <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/</a></i><br /><i>soundimageplus blog readers pictures group - <a href="http://www.flickr.com/groups/1705334@N24/" target="_blank">http://www.flickr.com/groups/1705334@N24/ </a></i><br /><i>soundimageplus on YouTube - <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/soundimageplus">http://www.youtube.com/user/soundimageplus</a></i><br /><i>soundimageplus on Vimeo - <a href="http://vimeo.com/user1050904/videos">http://vimeo.com/user1050904/video</a></i><br />davidmartynhugheshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13254354021575778255noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5425834970215923505.post-2122246561872372012012-04-14T02:49:00.000-07:002012-04-15T21:51:26.156-07:00A Fuji X-Pro 1 Adobe Camera Raw workaround + X-Pro 1 is really fast!<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/7075813813/" title="_DSF6941 by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="_DSF6941" height="374" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5322/7075813813_24463132c6.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;">Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 75mm f/2.5 Heliar</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">I thought that I could get more out of the X-Pro 1 raw files than Silkypix was allowing me. Here's how. Its not ideal but it works for me somewhat better than just using the Fuji software.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">In Silkypix there is a preset for development called Super Neutral, and indeed it does seem to be just that. i.e. a reasonably close version of the actual raw file.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ06aIf5PFTL5fQEQJUaYBdeQfM-qlREeYsvv6FkaOxzmVe6yW7HdYpcnnxgToHDqs5Pn1AlxzpytHpUSpFI1lEwBMH_VhkXGUo1r8cJc9sM7Zkbhyphenhyphen2QFDRmuym6Ke1djLWZuRAXlkEQQH/s1600/Screen+shot+2012-04-14+at+08.01.48.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="492" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ06aIf5PFTL5fQEQJUaYBdeQfM-qlREeYsvv6FkaOxzmVe6yW7HdYpcnnxgToHDqs5Pn1AlxzpytHpUSpFI1lEwBMH_VhkXGUo1r8cJc9sM7Zkbhyphenhyphen2QFDRmuym6Ke1djLWZuRAXlkEQQH/s640/Screen+shot+2012-04-14+at+08.01.48.png" width="640" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">As you can see just doing this has lightened up the shadows as opposed to the out of camera jpg. plus there is more detail in the sky and a more accurate colour.<br /><br />I then save this version as a TIFF, making sure that there is no sharpening applied to the files.<br /><br />Photoshop CS6 then lets me open that TIFF file in Adobe Camera Raw 7.<br /><br />At the present time this is the closest that I can get to a raw file that opens up in a more sophisticated raw converter. It means that I can work with a lossless file and I certainly can get better results than just working on TIFF files in Photoshop. The main reason I like this is that I can use the ACR sharpening parameters. Firstly I like them better than what Silkypix uses, Secondly, I'm used to working with them, so finally I have some idea of what I can get from these X-Pro 1 files.<br /><br />The first thing to say is that if you think you can get sharp clean images from either the jpgs. or the Silkypix conversions, then you will be amazed at what this can produce.<br /><br />The "Super Neutral" TIFF is quite low contrast and not bitingly sharp.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjL9LvJCtFU597xsXLss-DvDJkNVoDjYbvh2QjGY-ZhXZcR2mZ2eY77gqAtLqKP_gvtiEMo_b0nRywbMJBc5uWXyIHVRjgWS6vQ33tPQgpbtwjQHkoFOEHm7yzwPFfQL06Zi8w6nq17iQr7/s1600/Screen+shot+2012-04-14+at+10.15.56.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="420" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjL9LvJCtFU597xsXLss-DvDJkNVoDjYbvh2QjGY-ZhXZcR2mZ2eY77gqAtLqKP_gvtiEMo_b0nRywbMJBc5uWXyIHVRjgWS6vQ33tPQgpbtwjQHkoFOEHm7yzwPFfQL06Zi8w6nq17iQr7/s640/Screen+shot+2012-04-14+at+10.15.56.png" width="640" /></a></div><br />However, by running the TIFF file through ACR 7, I'm able to get something thats closer to what I would expect these files to produce.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcbxkunzW8ATPK5-PGGigA4_29dkGrtfbyEEl5McWdZGzWGftnifbk5LbGiwM9Zplr32DErxRIkkipMWVzKS8dILDLnV3WKj2zfg-rEyZwfrhTKhhYOGRSOros31AylwpCFDVGPnfykqyq/s1600/_DSF6941b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="354" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcbxkunzW8ATPK5-PGGigA4_29dkGrtfbyEEl5McWdZGzWGftnifbk5LbGiwM9Zplr32DErxRIkkipMWVzKS8dILDLnV3WKj2zfg-rEyZwfrhTKhhYOGRSOros31AylwpCFDVGPnfykqyq/s640/_DSF6941b.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />This is crisper, with a lot better contrast. Now, maybe I could get results similar to this in Silkypix, but so far I've been unable to work out how to do that. The sharpening parameters, in particular, seem a little crude to me, and apart from anything else, this is easier and quicker for me as I know how to get the results I want in Photoshop.<br /><br />Finally I would say, that now I have some way of (more or less) being able to compare the X-Pro 1 files with every other camera I've used, my impression is that these files are capable of astounding resolution and sharpness. The above Photoshopped file is a 100% blowup, and it looks pretty good to me. I'm not going to say the name, but very reminiscent of a certain German, hand-built camera of my recent aquaintance.<br /><br />As to the speed issue. I have been whingeing on about the speed of this camera, but yesterday gave me the opportunity to use it as a seriously fast camera. Using a NIKON 28mm f/2.8 lens, set to f11 at ISO 200, and focused on infinity (or using zone focusing / <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperfocal_distance" target="_blank">hyperfocal distance</a>), I was able to take these shots as if I was using a point and shoot camera. When the X-Pro 1 doesn't have to focus a lens, the shutter is actually pretty quick. It is of course the way that photographers have used certain hand built German cameras in the past for street photography. Wide-angle lenses and zone focusing have served the Magnum agency well down the years.<br /><br />So the X-Pro 1 CAN be a fast camera under certain circumstances, but it does require the right lens, the right adapter and the right light, as far as I'm concerned. However since images like the following are typical of what I take, then its a handy solution.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/7074546597/" title="FUJI X-PRO 1 Nikon 28mm f/1.4 by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="FUJI X-PRO 1 Nikon 28mm f/1.4" height="333" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7123/7074546597_68350c3eca.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">All images - Fuji X-PRO 1 Nikon 28mm f/2.8D lens</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/7074546959/" title="FUJI X-PRO 1 Nikon 28mm f/1.4 by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="FUJI X-PRO 1 Nikon 28mm f/1.4" height="267" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7225/7074546959_15162cf98a.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/7074547401/" title="FUJI X-PRO 1 Nikon 28mm f/1.4 by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="FUJI X-PRO 1 Nikon 28mm f/1.4" height="288" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7044/7074547401_8212d31720.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/6928467468/" title="FUJI X-PRO 1 Nikon 28mm f/1.4 by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="FUJI X-PRO 1 Nikon 28mm f/1.4" height="500" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7215/6928467468_a06633802c.jpg" width="333" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/6928467850/" title="FUJI X-PRO 1 Nikon 28mm f/1.4 by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="FUJI X-PRO 1 Nikon 28mm f/1.4" height="500" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7207/6928467850_30977c86df.jpg" width="397" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/6928468244/" title="FUJI X-PRO 1 Nikon 28mm f/1.4 by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="FUJI X-PRO 1 Nikon 28mm f/1.4" height="500" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7276/6928468244_c06e5ca647.jpg" width="333" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">So with the combination of this and my Raw file workaround, I'm starting to warm even more to the X-Pro 1. However that doesn't mean that I don't want to see Fuji firstly improve the camera as much as they able to via a firmware update, and most importantly sort out whatever problems they seem to be having with Adobe, Phase One and Apple and get the raw files from this camera supported ASAP.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>N.B. to see more on the cameras and lenses featured in this post click on the relevant labels (tags and keywords) below.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><i>All original material on this blog is © Soundimageplus</i><br /><i>For comment and discussion - join us over at Google+</i><br /><i><a href="https://plus.google.com/104558599624253816184/posts">https://plus.google.com/104558599624253816184/posts</a></i><br /><br /><i>soundimageplus website - <a href="http://web.me.com/davidmartynhughes/Site/home.html" target="_blank">http://web.me.com/davidmartynhughes/Site/home.html </a></i><br /><i>follow on twitter - <a href="http://twitter.com/#%21/soundimageplus">http://twitter.com/#!/soundimageplus</a></i><br /><i>follow on facebook - <a href="http://www.facebook.com/soundimageplus">http://www.facebook.com/soundimageplus</a></i><br /><i>soundimageplus on flickr - <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/</a></i><br /><i>soundimageplus blog readers pictures group - <a href="http://www.flickr.com/groups/1705334@N24/" target="_blank">http://www.flickr.com/groups/1705334@N24/ </a></i><br /><i>soundimageplus on YouTube - <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/soundimageplus">http://www.youtube.com/user/soundimageplus</a></i><br /><i>soundimageplus on Vimeo - <a href="http://vimeo.com/user1050904/videos">http://vimeo.com/user1050904/video</a></i><br /><br /></div>davidmartynhugheshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13254354021575778255noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5425834970215923505.post-58061608820637884582012-04-13T02:55:00.000-07:002012-04-15T21:51:26.168-07:00NEX-7 or X-PRO 1? A sort of conclusion on my X-Pro 1 review.<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/6924744656/" title="Sony NEX-7 Nikon 28mm f/2.8D by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="Sony NEX-7 Nikon 28mm f/2.8D" height="332" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5340/6924744656_5b6ba6886c.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/7070821789/" title="Sony NEX-7 Nikon 28mm f/2.8D by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="Sony NEX-7 Nikon 28mm f/2.8D" height="346" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7130/7070821789_e3493b83db.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/7070822073/" title="Sony NEX-7 Nikon 28mm f/2.8D 50mm f/1.8D by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="Sony NEX-7 Nikon 28mm f/2.8D 50mm f/1.8D" height="388" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5442/7070822073_28ae727674.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/6924745260/" title="Sony NEX-7 Nikon 28mm f/2.8D 50mm f/1.8D by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="Sony NEX-7 Nikon 28mm f/2.8D 50mm f/1.8D" height="380" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7230/6924745260_213944010c.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/6924745436/" title="Sony NEX-7 Nikon 28mm f/2.8D 50mm f/1.8D by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="Sony NEX-7 Nikon 28mm f/2.8D 50mm f/1.8D" height="412" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7217/6924745436_3a644503d8.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/6924745616/" title="Sony NEX-7 Nikon 50mm f/1.8D by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="Sony NEX-7 Nikon 50mm f/1.8D" height="406" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7194/6924745616_1a75087916.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">Got myself a leather case for the NEX-7 from ebay, which is very nice and improves the grip on the camera plus offers some protection. Just to get some perspective on the X-PRO 1 I went out with the NEX-7 and the two Nikon primes - 28mm f/2.8 and 50mm f/1.8.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/6925388338/" title="_DSC1984 by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="_DSC1984" height="500" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5072/6925388338_ca82d07f57.jpg" width="398" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/7071466233/" title="_DSC1996 by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="_DSC1996" height="500" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7103/7071466233_f3b25dda11.jpg" width="397" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/7071466803/" title="_DSC2009 by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="_DSC2009" height="500" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7261/7071466803_57c824bac1.jpg" width="396" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/7071467225/" title="_DSC2038 by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="_DSC2038" height="500" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5080/7071467225_1decedd132.jpg" width="401" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/6925390030/" title="_DSC2018 by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="_DSC2018" height="500" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5114/6925390030_4d30f338fe.jpg" width="396" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/7071468023/" title="_DSC2013 by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="_DSC2013" height="500" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5449/7071468023_8baf97c651.jpg" width="396" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">I also took a few more shots with the 35mm f/1.4 Fuji lens, since I've been using a lot of MF lenses recently.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/6925390670/" title="_DSF6865 by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="_DSF6865" height="500" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5080/6925390670_52e2b8627c.jpg" width="398" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/6925390850/" title="_DSF6882 by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="_DSF6882" height="500" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7219/6925390850_01145d8484.jpg" width="394" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/6925391024/" title="_DSF6898 by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="_DSF6898" height="213" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5114/6925391024_543a648a1b.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/7071468795/" title="_DSF6862 by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="_DSF6862" height="211" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5199/7071468795_6ac988fddf.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">So X-Pro 1 or Nex-7? Well I'd love to be able to take the Fuji sensor and put it in the Sony. Then I really would have my perfect camera. (Or as close as its possible to get to that at this moment in time)</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">I find the NEX-7 really easy to use, and its also a pleasure. This really is the nicest camera I've ever used. Its combination of small size, light weight, good functionality and handling (improved by the case), AF speed and accuracy, easy and accurate manual focusing, decent battery life and once I had it set up right, simplicity. The image quality is fine. At low ISO's its like everything else really. There's just more of it!!</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">The X-Pro 1 has some of the above, but in most cases, I find it less pleasurable to use than the Sony. Its small(ish), light(ish), the AF is, well what it is, the MF is OK, but not a patch on the Sony, functionality is again best described as it is what it is, it has poor battery life (though this is much improved by using the optical viewfinder only) and its not that simple.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">The pictures I took with it were with the Fuji 35mm f/1.4 lens, and just to see what it was like after using the camera in MF mode for a while I turned everything on. The clicking aperture blades were back, grinding AF etc. I was doing some close ups alternating with longer shots, so I was turning the macro on, then off, then on again etc. Looking at the images later the camera had missed focus several times, despite beeping confidently at me to tell me it was locked on. So much the same as before really, and in line with what virtually every reviewer and user has said.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">But then there's these pictures that come out of it. </div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">And thats the dilemma with this camera. How much can I, and indeed any of us, put up with to achieve this superb image quality? Of course there shouldn't be this dilemma in the first place. None of us are expecting D4 handling and speed here, but some of what the X-Pro 1 does (and doesn't do) is nothing short of disgraceful. Familiarising myself with the clicking aperture blades again, I realised just how noisy they are. </div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">I read a piece by a wedding photographer who was keen to use the camera but was concerned about the "rattlesnake effect" in practice. He made the good point that yes DSLR's can have noisy shutters, particularly when using a motordrive, but that is a noise that is both understood and at a wedding, expected. The clicking blades are an unusual sound and would attract attention because non-photographers wouldn't know what they were. Drawing attention to your camera is not a good idea. The whole point is to get people to ignore it. </div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">The problem with this, and the fact that the screen and EVF have a slow refresh rate and the poor battery life, mean that this cameras obvious advantages in low light situations, because of the great sensor, are sabotaged by the inadequacies of the body.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">This combined with the slow noisy focusing and the inexusable number of times it either won't focus at all or misfocuses, makes for a flawed camera. And yes I've said it before, but the more times this gets highlighted, the more Fuji will get the message that they really need to fix this, and fix it fast.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">If I was asked whether or not I would recommend the camera, I would say yes for the image quality, but be very sure that its faults don't outweigh its advantages for you. (Actually thats probably advantage - singular!!) If you want to be unobtrusive and use AF, then that might not be possible. If you're looking for that "Cartier-Besson moment" then just cross your fingers that it doesn't mess it up.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">If you want to use it as a studio, still-life or landscape camera with top quality manual focus lenses then you would get my enthusiastic endorsement. As a street photography camera, quick reaction camera or indeed even as a camera for documenting your family life, I would issue a warning. Something along the lines of, see if it gets some fixes in a firmware update or if not wait for the X-Pro 2. Or going back to the point of this post, get a NEX-7. Or if you need something that works well in low light, a NEX-5n + Viewfinder + Zeiss 24mm f/1.8 is cheaper than the X-Pro 1 body alone. </div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">So how is it for me? Well as previously stated, I'm planning to use it as a manual focus camera virtually exclusively. I will use it when I have the time to get the best out of it. I've written before that its nothing to do with the fact that pictures with this sensor will sell more, because they won't. I just love looking at the images on my screen. In many cases they are really beautiful. I think after its been around for a while, people will stop asking questions like "Is the image quality as good as a Leica?" and start asking questions like "Does x,y, or z have as good image quality as the X-Pro1?" </div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">I can't actually think of any other camera that produces files that look like this. And another thought has occurred to me. This is possibly the first sensor that produces images that work best in the digital domain. What I mean by this is that you would think that a digitally produced photograph would be a clean, accurate representation of what the camera and lens is pointed at. To a large extent this hasn't happened. The need for AA filters is just one example. With increases in bandwidth speed more and more full-size images are going to be viewable on computer monitors, iPads and the like. The web doesn't have to have only low-res images anymore. The X-Pro 1 sensor strikes me as ideal for producing representations of the world that get the closest to reality that two dimensions can. And while something like a Leica M9 is designed to produce a film-like appearance the Fuji X-Pro1 seems to achieve something different. Ironically it includes film-like simulation presets. Though this to me is just some marketing device to remind us of Fuji's past, since these presets may be attractive to some, but as far as I can see they have little in common with their silver halide predecessors. </div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">One thing is for sure, this sensor does move things on. I was reading some posts on a Leica forum yesterday, and there were some taking every opportunity to criticise the Fuji. But then I guess if you have recently spent £5000 on a camera you might well try to convince others (and yourself) that this was money well spent. But there were some who were obviously both shocked and impressed by just how good these Fuji files are. Certainly any lingering idea that I might yet regret selling the M9 has disappeared ever since I've had the Fuji.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">So this is pretty much the end of this "review" section in my adventures with the X-Pro 1. There will of course be lots more posts about me using it. Probably alternatively getting frustrated with it and impressed with the picture quality. I might be inclined to do a test between the Fuji and Voitlander 35mm lenses, but then I might not since from what I've seen they are both very good indeed, and it strikes me it would probably be too close to call. The Fuji is certainly better wide open and the Voitlander slightly better around f/8-f/11. However the Voigtlander has one overriding advantage. It doesn't make a noise!! </div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">There are plenty of other reviews and experiences around and many are well worth reading. These often include the two Fuji lenses I don't own.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">Chris (CMHHK) wrote a phrase a while ago at the end of his impressions of the Fuji. You can see that post here:-</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6011739512874474895#editor/target=post;postID=6180255344486682047">http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6011739512874474895#editor/target=post;postID=6180255344486682047</a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><i><span class="kH">"If I were only allowed one camera, it would not be an X-Pro. If I were allowed two cameras, then maybe one would be an X-Pro 1."</span></i></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><span class="kH">I can't think of a better summing up of what I think of the camera.</span><i><span class="kH"> </span></i></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><i><span class="kH"><br /></span></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>N.B. to see more on the cameras and lenses featured in this post click on the relevant labels (tags and keywords) below.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><i>All original material on this blog is © Soundimageplus</i><br /><i>For comment and discussion - join us over at Google+</i><br /><i><a href="https://plus.google.com/104558599624253816184/posts">https://plus.google.com/104558599624253816184/posts</a></i><br /><br /><i>soundimageplus website - <a href="http://web.me.com/davidmartynhughes/Site/home.html" target="_blank">http://web.me.com/davidmartynhughes/Site/home.html </a></i><br /><i>follow on twitter - <a href="http://twitter.com/#%21/soundimageplus">http://twitter.com/#!/soundimageplus</a></i><br /><i>follow on facebook - <a href="http://www.facebook.com/soundimageplus">http://www.facebook.com/soundimageplus</a></i><br /><i>soundimageplus on flickr - <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/</a></i><br /><i>soundimageplus blog readers pictures group - <a href="http://www.flickr.com/groups/1705334@N24/" target="_blank">http://www.flickr.com/groups/1705334@N24/ </a></i><br /><i>soundimageplus on YouTube - <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/soundimageplus">http://www.youtube.com/user/soundimageplus</a></i><br /><i>soundimageplus on Vimeo - <a href="http://vimeo.com/user1050904/videos">http://vimeo.com/user1050904/videos</a></i><br /><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><br /></div>davidmartynhugheshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13254354021575778255noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5425834970215923505.post-88803179488997619212012-04-12T02:48:00.000-07:002012-04-15T21:51:26.181-07:00FUJI X-PRO 1 with NIKON D lenses<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/7070249751/" title="Fuji X-Pro 1 Nikon 28mm f/2.8D and 50mm f/1.8D lenses by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="Fuji X-Pro 1 Nikon 28mm f/2.8D and 50mm f/1.8D lenses" height="346" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5455/7070249751_ac4b25374c.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/7070250009/" title="Fuji X-Pro 1 Nikon 28mm f/2.8D and 50mm f/1.8D lenses by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="Fuji X-Pro 1 Nikon 28mm f/2.8D and 50mm f/1.8D lenses" height="332" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5232/7070250009_2de9f2731f.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">It always surprises me that more people don't use Nikon D lenses when using adapted manual focus lenses. There's always lots of words written about Leica and M-mount lenses but very little about these little black wonders. They are (mostly) excellent lenses with excellent optical performance and many of them are small, light and relatively inexpensive.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">The 35mm f/1.2 Voigtlander I've been using with my X-Pro 1 is somewhat heavy, and tends to make a bit of a nonsense of the ethos of the camera system. Using it yesterday, it was the heaviest outfit I've carried around for a while, and while it was enjoyable to use, its just that little bit too much. With the NEX-7 its just about OK, but the X-PRO 1 is a heavier camera. </div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">I thought I'd try a couple of Nikons out. The 28mm f/2.8 and the legendary (£99) 50mm f/1.8. Both performed very well and as expected. Not quite (though by a small margin) as sharp as the Voigtlander, but pretty close and easier to carry. Plus of course I can use them on my NEX and m4/3 cameras.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">Here's a few 100% blowups so that you can see what they are like.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/7070205361/" title="Fuji X-Pro 1 Nikon 28mm f/2.8D by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="Fuji X-Pro 1 Nikon 28mm f/2.8D" height="500" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7271/7070205361_0d7b600e4b.jpg" width="402" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/6924125584/" title="Fuji X-Pro 1 Nikon 28mm f/2.8D by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="Fuji X-Pro 1 Nikon 28mm f/2.8D" height="500" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7122/6924125584_e513bf3ae4.jpg" width="394" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/7070204937/" title="Fuji X-Pro 1 Nikon 28mm f/2.8D by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="Fuji X-Pro 1 Nikon 28mm f/2.8D" height="208" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5454/7070204937_daaf96e700.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/6924125248/" title="Fuji X-Pro 1 Nikon 28mm f/2.8D by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="Fuji X-Pro 1 Nikon 28mm f/2.8D" height="500" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5194/6924125248_dd4a5dde50.jpg" width="397" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/7070204527/" title="Fuji X-Pro 1 Nikon 28mm f/2.8D by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="Fuji X-Pro 1 Nikon 28mm f/2.8D" height="500" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7195/7070204527_eff2806b92.jpg" width="398" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/7070204245/" title="Fuji X-Pro 1 Nikon 28mm f/2.8D by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="Fuji X-Pro 1 Nikon 28mm f/2.8D" height="500" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5038/7070204245_5c8224eacd.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/6924124382/" title="Fuji X-Pro 1 Nikon 28mm f/2.8D by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="Fuji X-Pro 1 Nikon 28mm f/2.8D" height="212" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5240/6924124382_36940aa876.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/7070203617/" title="Fuji X-Pro 1 Nikon 28mm f/2.8D by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="Fuji X-Pro 1 Nikon 28mm f/2.8D" height="500" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5079/7070203617_2b5f9e7af6.jpg" width="397" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/7070249919/" title="Fuji X-Pro 1 Nikon 28mm f/2.8D and 50mm f/1.8D lenses by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="Fuji X-Pro 1 Nikon 28mm f/2.8D and 50mm f/1.8D lenses" height="332" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7196/7070249919_6e82452a36.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/7070249799/" title="Fuji X-Pro 1 Nikon 28mm f/2.8D and 50mm f/1.8D lenses by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="Fuji X-Pro 1 Nikon 28mm f/2.8D and 50mm f/1.8D lenses" height="332" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5338/7070249799_6fb7c58d59.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>N.B. to see more on the cameras and lenses featured in this post click on the relevant labels (tags and keywords) below.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><i>All original material on this blog is © Soundimageplus</i><br /><i>For comment and discussion - join us over at Google+</i><br /><i><a href="https://plus.google.com/104558599624253816184/posts">https://plus.google.com/104558599624253816184/posts</a></i><br /><br /><i>soundimageplus website - <a href="http://web.me.com/davidmartynhughes/Site/home.html" target="_blank">http://web.me.com/davidmartynhughes/Site/home.html </a></i><br /><i>follow on twitter - <a href="http://twitter.com/#%21/soundimageplus">http://twitter.com/#!/soundimageplus</a></i><br /><i>follow on facebook - <a href="http://www.facebook.com/soundimageplus">http://www.facebook.com/soundimageplus</a></i><br /><i>soundimageplus on flickr - <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/</a></i><br /><i>soundimageplus blog readers pictures group - <a href="http://www.flickr.com/groups/1705334@N24/" target="_blank">http://www.flickr.com/groups/1705334@N24/ </a></i><br /><i>soundimageplus on YouTube - <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/soundimageplus">http://www.youtube.com/user/soundimageplus</a></i><br /><i>soundimageplus on Vimeo - <a href="http://vimeo.com/user1050904/videos">http://vimeo.com/user1050904/videos</a></i><br /><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><br /></div>davidmartynhugheshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13254354021575778255noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5425834970215923505.post-1890377592429061122012-04-11T22:31:00.000-07:002012-04-15T21:51:26.192-07:00FUJI X-PRO 1 Grip<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/6921652446/" title="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 35mm f/1.2 Nokton Kipon LM > FX adapter by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 35mm f/1.2 Nokton Kipon LM > FX adapter" height="319" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7201/6921652446_9a55085b2a.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/7067732525/" title="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 35mm f/1.2 Nokton Kipon LM > FX adapter by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 35mm f/1.2 Nokton Kipon LM > FX adapter" height="437" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5451/7067732525_7e19d7ec2f.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">The detachable grip for the X-PRO 1 arrived yesterday. Provides something a little more substantial to hold on to. Useful with these somewhat heavier m-mount lenses.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">Concerning that, this combination is pretty chunky. Its only the same as a Leica etc. would weigh, but after what I've been used to recently it feels quite heavy. </div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">I have a plan B.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>N.B. to see more on the cameras and lenses featured in this post click on the relevant labels (tags and keywords) below.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><i>All original material on this blog is © Soundimageplus</i><br /><i>For comment and discussion - join us over at Google+</i><br /><i><a href="https://plus.google.com/104558599624253816184/posts">https://plus.google.com/104558599624253816184/posts</a></i><br /><br /><i>soundimageplus website - <a href="http://web.me.com/davidmartynhughes/Site/home.html" target="_blank">http://web.me.com/davidmartynhughes/Site/home.html </a></i><br /><i>follow on twitter - <a href="http://twitter.com/#%21/soundimageplus">http://twitter.com/#!/soundimageplus</a></i><br /><i>follow on facebook - <a href="http://www.facebook.com/soundimageplus">http://www.facebook.com/soundimageplus</a></i><br /><i>soundimageplus on flickr - <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/</a></i><br /><i>soundimageplus blog readers pictures group - <a href="http://www.flickr.com/groups/1705334@N24/" target="_blank">http://www.flickr.com/groups/1705334@N24/ </a></i><br /><i>soundimageplus on YouTube - <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/soundimageplus">http://www.youtube.com/user/soundimageplus</a></i><br /><i>soundimageplus on Vimeo - <a href="http://vimeo.com/user1050904/videos">http://vimeo.com/user1050904/videos</a></i><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br /></div>davidmartynhugheshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13254354021575778255noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5425834970215923505.post-88137887532044967982012-04-11T03:14:00.000-07:002012-04-15T21:51:26.202-07:00Fuji X-Pro 1 + M-Mount lenses<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/7064206853/" title="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 75mm f/2.5 Heliar Kipon LM > FX adapter by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 75mm f/2.5 Heliar Kipon LM > FX adapter" height="380" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5343/7064206853_672651d7ac.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;">Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 75mm f/2.5 Heliar Kipon LM > FX adapter</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">THE ADAPTER</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">At this moment in time the only adapters that I know of are made by Kipon. I got mine via ebay. I have one already for Nikon mount lenses, which was excellent and this one for m-mount lenses is also very good quality. The lenses fits well with no movement and likewise the adapter slots nicely onto the camera and the whole thing feels very secure. </div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">Also like my Nikon adapter, infinity is infinity. This is very useful, as it allows for accurate zone focusing using the hyperfocal distance with the depth of field markings on the lens. On several occasions yesterday I just set the lens at infinity, confident that what I was photographing would be in focus. </div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">From my experience with them these Kipon adapters seem every bit as good as Novoflex ones I've bought in the past. They aren't cheap (£60), but then if you are using m-mount lenses, its probably a good idea to get a decent adapter.<br /><br />THE LENSES<br /><br />I have two m-mount lenses currently. The recently updated Voigtlander 35mm f/1.2 Nokton and a 75mm f/2.5 Heliar. This latter lens is an old Voigtlander design and is a screw mount, which I have an m-mount adapter for.<br /><br />FOCUSING WITH THE LENSES<br /><br />For anyone who has used MF lenses on the latest Panasonic m4/3 cameras this will seem very familiar as the process is almost exactly the same. There's a thumbwheel on the back of the camera, easily accessible for my thumb while looking through the viewfinder. After setting the camera up for manual focus and turning the SHOOT W/O LENS option to on, pressing this thumbwheel brings up a magnified view. I'm having trouble finding out exactly what this magnification is, but its certainly enough. In good light it works well, but in low light the refresh rate on the EVF is a little slow and there is a fair amount of "smearing" in the viewfinder. However, while not being as clear as a Panasonic EVF, it still works well enough.<br /><br />There is no focus peaking as with the Sony NEX system, but I haven't found it to be a problem. It even coped with my wearing dark glasses. Non-polaroid, I should mention, as my polarised glasses turn the EVF completely black.<br /><br />I often had the aperture set to f/8 and f/11 and I was still able to focus accurately on the 35mm lens, without having to open the lens up to get precise focus. The 75mm lens, with its more limited depth of field was really easy to focus at all apertures. I was also able to focus without using the magnificaton on the 75mm lens, though the 35mm was somewhat more difficult.<br /><br />Without the focus peaking of the Sony NEX-7, NEX-5n, its somewhat slower, but as I said almost exactly the same as the Panasonic system and somewhat better and less fiddly than that on the Olympus Pens.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/7065182805/" title="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 35mm f/1.2 Nokton by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 35mm f/1.2 Nokton" height="333" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7208/7065182805_4017ed3b56.jpg" width="500" /></a> </div><div style="text-align: center;">Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 35mm f/1.2 Nokton</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">PLEASE NOTE:- All of the samples in this post are available as full-size samples by clicking on them > flickr > Actions > View all sizes > Original. I am happy for you to view these images, but would remind you that they are copyright and would ask you to respect that. </div><br />USING THE X-PRO 1 AS A MANUAL FOCUS CAMERA<br /><br />All of a sudden this is a different camera or me. All the clicking, clattering and grinding of the AF system goes away. Suddenly you realise that the shutter is actually very quiet. Not as quiet as the X100, but still not intrusive. My 35mm lens is also much heavier than any of the Fuji native lenses and the camera has a very solid feel with it fitted. This is very different to the feel of the X100.<br /><br />In fact the whole outfit feels very "Leicaesque". It reminded me very much of using cameras like the M8 and M9. I know its just psychological, but with these metal lenses on the camera, the body suddenly developed more "gravitas", but thats just me!!<br /><br />I indicated yesterday that I enjoyed shooting like this, and that was certainly the case. In a previous post I wrote about using my Nikon mount Voigtlander 20mm and how easy that was. This is similar. I personally enjoy this simplified approach and its going to be how I mostly use the camera.<br /><br />Its a very personal view, but my X-PRO 1 has changed from being a flawed camera that I struggle to make do what I want, into a nicely balanced picture taking machine that I feel completely in control of. I really do have a problem with noisy cameras. I dislike them. The X-PRO 1 is the most persistantly noisy I've ever used, and the AF grinding makes me think that its going to self-destruct any minute! Using these MF lenses I feel like a photographer again, instead of a technician.<br /><br />I also love the fact that I do everything through the viewfinder. I compose, focus, change settings and check my results through the EVF. I had the screen turned off throughout most of yesterdays shooting, which considering the poor battery life is useful. <br /><br />The camera mostly handles very well with these lenses. However I have ordered the grip, which is due to arrive today. I found that using handgrips on both of my Leicas gave me better handling on those cameras. I don't particularly like the "neither one thing or the other" feel of the X-PRO 1 as it is, but I didn't have any particular problems.<br /><br />THE RESULTS<br /><br />I'm going to go through some of these pictures individually.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/7065209475/" title="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 35mm f/1.2 Nokton by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 35mm f/1.2 Nokton" height="333" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5316/7065209475_df3f7d87eb.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 35mm f/1.2 Nokton</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I had the camera set on ISO 320 the whole time. Now I can't tell the difference between this and ISO 200. In fact up to about ISO 640, the images are still amazingly clean. Because there's no IS available, I wanted fast shutter speeds and the smallest aperture I could get. This was taken at f/8 I think and was focused on infinity. This allowed me to keep the boater sharp. If you look at the full size file you will see that the writing on the lock gate is slightly out of focus. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/7065187925/" title="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 75mm f/2.5 Heliar by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 75mm f/2.5 Heliar" height="333" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7039/7065187925_18df589e49.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 75mm f/2.5 Heliar</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This is the 75mm at f/4.The bokeh on some Voigtlander lenses is not the "creamiest" but still nice enough.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/7065159745/" title="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 35mm f/1.2 Nokton by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 35mm f/1.2 Nokton" height="333" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7277/7065159745_5decea82aa.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 35mm f/1.2 Nokton</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This shot was taken wide open at f/1.2 on the 35mm lens. If you look at the full size version you will see that very little of it is in sharp focus. However, I discovered that the X-PRO 1 does an amazing thing. On the out of camera jpgs. it "cleans up" CA from non-native lenses. This 35mm lens is very prone to CA and fringing wide open, but as you can see there's none here. We are all aware that in many circumstances, manufacturers use the cameras firmware / software to "correct" lenses, but that is usually with lenses that the camera can "see". However what seems to be happening with the Fuji is that it is making these CA "corrections" on the image itself. Both of these Voigtlanders show both CA and fringing at wide apertures on other cameras, but not here. If it is the case that the Fuji cleans up the image itself rather than applies some kind of preset to a particular lens, then that is a very significant and very useful development.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/6919117774/" title="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 75mm f/2.5 Heliar by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 75mm f/2.5 Heliar" height="333" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7133/6919117774_fd86200f9f.jpg" width="500" /></a> </div><div style="text-align: center;">Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 75mm f/2.5 Heliar<br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">This was a shot focused without using the magnification and I took quite a few "duck bothering" pictures. Most were successful.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/6919090212/" title="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 75mm f/2.5 Heliar by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 75mm f/2.5 Heliar" height="333" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5445/6919090212_0d229783b3.jpg" width="500" /></a> </div><div style="text-align: center;">Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 75mm f/2.5 Heliar</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Its in these telephoto shots where the Fuji scores over the Leica rangefinder system. With a Leica its really difficult to see if you have focus when the subject is some distance away. If you have a lens with proper infinity focus then its no problem. I had an old Leica 135mm which didn't and it was very tricky to use.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/6919667586/" title="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 35mm f/1.2 Nokton Kipon LM > FX adapter by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 35mm f/1.2 Nokton Kipon LM > FX adapter" height="333" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7130/6919667586_49eec4593c.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 35mm f/1.2</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/7065756653/" title="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 35mm f/1.2 Nokton Kipon LM > FX adapter by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 35mm f/1.2 Nokton Kipon LM > FX adapter" height="333" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7258/7065756653_1cddd61d0b.jpg" width="500" /></a> </div><div style="text-align: center;">Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 35mm f/1.2</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">These last two are from raw files. The top one has one of the Velvia presets applied in Silkypix. Its a bit over the top even for me! And of course it looks nothing like Velvia. I'm currently engaged in scanning a lot of Velvia transparencies, so I know what it looks like. It isn't this!</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The bottom picture shows just how well these files upsize. This is upsized to 60MB or about 20MP. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">THE BOTTOM LINE</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">For me this was just what I'm looking for. I enjoyed the process and the results are very good indeed. Chris (CMHHK) has reported some softness in the jpgs. from some of his Leica lenses and I guess it may depend on what you use. Certainly I have no complaints about these two Voigtlander m-mounts, or indeed the 20mm Nikon f-mount lens I used before. I enjoy using the camera a lot more, and though there isn't much improvement using the Voigtlander 35mm over the native 35mm Fuji lens, there is some, and thats worth it for me.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Finally a contentious point. When people were comparing this cameras results to those from a Leica M9, I was somewhat skeptical, and to be honest couldn't see how that could be possible. Steve Huff in his review of the X PRO 1 is very definite that the Fuji can't equal the M9 in terms of image quality. While I take his point, these judgements are based on either jpgs. or an ACR (M9) v Silkypix (XP1) comparison. I'm not sure this is a way to actually make that comparison. Certainly my Leica M9 shots processed in Photoshop are (slightly) sharper than what I can get out of the XP1 + Silkypix. But since I can't use Photoshop for the Fuji shots I don't know what they are capable of. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">However what I can say is that I think I prefer the results from the Fuji. They are certainly sharp enough (somewhat of an understatement!) but the real advantage is that they are free from any type of noise or colour distortions. And this applies to the jpgs. which are far and away the best I've ever seen straight out of a camera. Add in the ISO bonus from the Fuji and I have no reason to change my opinion when I first got this camera that this is the best image quality I have ever seen. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Anyway, have a look at the full size samples and see what you think.<br /><br />By the way for anyone who is planning to shoot with alternative and/or legacy lenses on an X-PRO 1, I've started a group for that over on flickr.<br /><br />Its at:- <a href="http://www.flickr.com/groups/1933080@N21/">http://www.flickr.com/groups/1933080@N21/</a> I'd be happy to see you and your pictures there.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>N.B. to see more on the cameras and lenses featured in this post click on the relevant labels (tags and keywords) below.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><i>All original material on this blog is © Soundimageplus</i><br /><i>For comment and discussion - join us over at Google+</i><br /><i><a href="https://plus.google.com/104558599624253816184/posts">https://plus.google.com/104558599624253816184/posts</a></i><br /><br /><i>soundimageplus website - <a href="http://web.me.com/davidmartynhughes/Site/home.html" target="_blank">http://web.me.com/davidmartynhughes/Site/home.html </a></i><br /><i>follow on twitter - <a href="http://twitter.com/#%21/soundimageplus">http://twitter.com/#!/soundimageplus</a></i><br /><i>follow on facebook - <a href="http://www.facebook.com/soundimageplus">http://www.facebook.com/soundimageplus</a></i><br /><i>soundimageplus on flickr - <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/</a></i><br /><i>soundimageplus blog readers pictures group - <a href="http://www.flickr.com/groups/1705334@N24/" target="_blank">http://www.flickr.com/groups/1705334@N24/ </a></i><br /><i>soundimageplus on YouTube - <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/soundimageplus">http://www.youtube.com/user/soundimageplus</a></i><br /><i>soundimageplus on Vimeo - <a href="http://vimeo.com/user1050904/videos">http://vimeo.com/user1050904/videos</a></i></div></div></div></div></div>davidmartynhugheshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13254354021575778255noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5425834970215923505.post-16779175081890565662012-04-10T11:46:00.000-07:002012-04-15T21:51:26.214-07:00The problem with the Sigma SD1Extensive review of the Sigma DS1 Merril at Dpreview :-<br /><a href="http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/sigmasd1/">http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/sigmasd1/</a><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/sigmasd1/" target="_blank"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgETZ4TxXGKnKPKqEy9ln_u3Ce1hm6bWdYRaR_6nN-8Fy0C6Bo9jE4-Y55CJ7kqQB3n_raXEwzPKTeT8G7hciOTIe3s9VwE-29rbDVpTVZS7la51G1fFQ4IdvCGvk3nDUKkdKXcI3iVvwRC/s640/Screen+shot+2012-04-10+at+19.34.55.png" width="632" /></a></div><br />Pretty much as expected.<br /><br />However I looked very closely at the samples and you get this.<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsOgBdsIySI3y4_sqPkHaiwMB7iJPkpWxjyiVbaK5zcFA5I_vX1XsFQKm9LzJoATBI3ysgsdRB7KrRWOwb7b6WpcMdmdsRR9TWaSbXyrolZ8LrzsJasJVRYJiZ8e1MicMhXHokFYxwQeeT/s1600/1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="368" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsOgBdsIySI3y4_sqPkHaiwMB7iJPkpWxjyiVbaK5zcFA5I_vX1XsFQKm9LzJoATBI3ysgsdRB7KrRWOwb7b6WpcMdmdsRR9TWaSbXyrolZ8LrzsJasJVRYJiZ8e1MicMhXHokFYxwQeeT/s640/1.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>From the centre of one of the samples. Impressive.<br /><br />Then I looked at the two edges from the same picture.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjU2olnuX62ppYa9LYC3xRByR-ti-YOGWGINWRRlTAY-ue2W1UCJFY0TLfddVAWRWm0ZVTWzz3fx3zds5HceKSzovLpG1dd7ALbJzJriHcdS7sBgZ4XBclAbo-A74JxcUrcgqEk6UYPRNhs/s1600/2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="374" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjU2olnuX62ppYa9LYC3xRByR-ti-YOGWGINWRRlTAY-ue2W1UCJFY0TLfddVAWRWm0ZVTWzz3fx3zds5HceKSzovLpG1dd7ALbJzJriHcdS7sBgZ4XBclAbo-A74JxcUrcgqEk6UYPRNhs/s640/2.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiE4GkrtvsJ1zkloya0zWOY3OC6EuWQcng_0sx6WoyGa3EWTJAOL3mpJZIZRf0alIBNno3-5elVS2fLhTFOnNM-MHcszod2RpCqroZZhqxNWQuGWntmdSkSI4cd4jI5ObjfpfJzC41QMZur/s1600/3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="368" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiE4GkrtvsJ1zkloya0zWOY3OC6EuWQcng_0sx6WoyGa3EWTJAOL3mpJZIZRf0alIBNno3-5elVS2fLhTFOnNM-MHcszod2RpCqroZZhqxNWQuGWntmdSkSI4cd4jI5ObjfpfJzC41QMZur/s640/3.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />Not so impressive. In fact not very good at all. Taken on a Sigma 17-50mm f/2.8 zoom at f/8. Unfortunately it seems Sigma are having a good go at sabotaging their brilliant (if somewhat limited) sensor with the lenses they produce for it.<br /><br />Having spent the afternoon with my X-Pro 1 and a couple of Voigtlander m-mounts, I can report that there are no such problems with lenses and an image quality thats about the same from straight out of the camera jpgs.<br /><br />I'm putting together samples and a post for tomorrow on that. But just to wet your appetite, the most fun I've had for ages with a camera in my hand, and the pictures were pretty good too!!<br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>N.B. to see more on the cameras and lenses featured in this post click on the relevant labels (tags and keywords) below.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><i>All original material on this blog is © Soundimageplus</i><br /><i>For comment and discussion - join us over at Google+</i><br /><i><a href="https://plus.google.com/104558599624253816184/posts">https://plus.google.com/104558599624253816184/posts</a></i><br /><br /><i>soundimageplus website - <a href="http://web.me.com/davidmartynhughes/Site/home.html" target="_blank">http://web.me.com/davidmartynhughes/Site/home.html </a></i><br /><i>follow on twitter - <a href="http://twitter.com/#%21/soundimageplus">http://twitter.com/#!/soundimageplus</a></i><br /><i>follow on facebook - <a href="http://www.facebook.com/soundimageplus">http://www.facebook.com/soundimageplus</a></i><br /><i>soundimageplus on flickr - <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/</a></i><br /><i>soundimageplus blog readers pictures group - <a href="http://www.flickr.com/groups/1705334@N24/" target="_blank">http://www.flickr.com/groups/1705334@N24/ </a></i><br /><i>soundimageplus on YouTube - <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/soundimageplus">http://www.youtube.com/user/soundimageplus</a></i><br /><i>soundimageplus on Vimeo - <a href="http://vimeo.com/user1050904/videos">http://vimeo.com/user1050904/videos</a></i><br /><br /><br /><br />davidmartynhugheshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13254354021575778255noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5425834970215923505.post-9569927073681390992012-04-10T05:34:00.000-07:002012-04-15T21:51:26.224-07:00M-mount to Fuji X-Pro adapter arrivedMy adapter finally arrived. A few test shots and the pictures look good. I'm off to do something a bit more serious.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/7064207301/" title="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 35mm f/1.2 Heliar Kipon LM > FX adapter by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 35mm f/1.2 Heliar Kipon LM > FX adapter" height="409" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7274/7064207301_8ece088d3b.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/7064207089/" title="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 35mm f/1.2 Heliar Kipon LM > FX adapter by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 35mm f/1.2 Heliar Kipon LM > FX adapter" height="412" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5331/7064207089_8b8a65669b.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/7064206853/" title="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 75mm f/2.5 Heliar Kipon LM > FX adapter by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 75mm f/2.5 Heliar Kipon LM > FX adapter" height="380" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5343/7064206853_672651d7ac.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/7064206711/" title="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 75mm f/2.5 Heliar Kipon LM > FX adapter by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 75mm f/2.5 Heliar Kipon LM > FX adapter" height="352" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5452/7064206711_26154c70c8.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/7064161445/" title="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 35mm f/1.2 Nokton Kipon LM > FX adapter by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 35mm f/1.2 Nokton Kipon LM > FX adapter" height="500" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7181/7064161445_75940c9fe5.jpg" width="402" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/6918082574/" title="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 35mm f/1.2 Nokton Kipon LM > FX adapter by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 35mm f/1.2 Nokton Kipon LM > FX adapter" height="500" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7246/6918082574_c391f4ee20.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/6918082398/" title="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 35mm f/1.2 Nokton Kipon LM > FX adapter by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 35mm f/1.2 Nokton Kipon LM > FX adapter" height="500" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7192/6918082398_660c78d3cb.jpg" width="404" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/7064160313/" title="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 35mm f/1.2 Nokton Kipon LM > FX adapter by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 35mm f/1.2 Nokton Kipon LM > FX adapter" height="500" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7041/7064160313_346a45c274.jpg" width="399" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/7064160135/" title="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 75mm f/2.5 Heliar Kipon LM > FX adapter by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 75mm f/2.5 Heliar Kipon LM > FX adapter" height="500" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5343/7064160135_09dbffcd2a.jpg" width="403" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/6918081442/" title="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 75mm f/2.5 Heliar Kipon LM > FX adapter by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 75mm f/2.5 Heliar Kipon LM > FX adapter" height="500" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5111/6918081442_b2e6a0ee48.jpg" width="391" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/7064159669/" title="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 75mm f/2.5 Heliar Kipon LM > FX adapter by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 75mm f/2.5 Heliar Kipon LM > FX adapter" height="500" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5446/7064159669_4f28aff50a.jpg" width="397" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/6918080960/" title="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 75mm f/2.5 Heliar Kipon LM > FX adapter by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 75mm f/2.5 Heliar Kipon LM > FX adapter" height="500" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5238/6918080960_d968b37987.jpg" width="404" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>N.B. to see more on the cameras and lenses featured in this post click on the relevant labels (tags and keywords) below.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><i>All original material on this blog is © Soundimageplus</i><br /><i>For comment and discussion - join us over at Google+</i><br /><i><a href="https://plus.google.com/104558599624253816184/posts">https://plus.google.com/104558599624253816184/posts</a></i><br /><br /><i>soundimageplus website - <a href="http://web.me.com/davidmartynhughes/Site/home.html" target="_blank">http://web.me.com/davidmartynhughes/Site/home.html </a></i><br /><i>follow on twitter - <a href="http://twitter.com/#%21/soundimageplus">http://twitter.com/#!/soundimageplus</a></i><br /><i>follow on facebook - <a href="http://www.facebook.com/soundimageplus">http://www.facebook.com/soundimageplus</a></i><br /><i>soundimageplus on flickr - <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/</a></i><br /><i>soundimageplus blog readers pictures group - <a href="http://www.flickr.com/groups/1705334@N24/" target="_blank">http://www.flickr.com/groups/1705334@N24/ </a></i><br /><i>soundimageplus on YouTube - <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/soundimageplus">http://www.youtube.com/user/soundimageplus</a></i><br /><i>soundimageplus on Vimeo - <a href="http://vimeo.com/user1050904/videos">http://vimeo.com/user1050904/videos</a></i>davidmartynhugheshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13254354021575778255noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5425834970215923505.post-20924860485248384672012-04-10T03:00:00.000-07:002012-04-15T21:51:26.234-07:00The Sony NEX lens mantra<div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/6917830184/" title="Sony NEX-7 18-55mm kit zoom lens by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="Sony NEX-7 18-55mm kit zoom lens" height="333" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7119/6917830184_8f34f15ea9.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">All pictures - Sony NEX-7 18-55mm kit zoom lens</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Repeat after me:-</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>THE SONY E-MOUNT LENS MANTRA</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>All Sony e-mount lenses are rubbish. (Except for the Zeiss 24mm because thats....... well ITS ZEISS!)</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Anything (everything) is better than a Sony e-mount lens.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>They are soft, distorted nasty little things and should be put out of their misery ASAP.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>If you buy one you are an idiot.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">etc. etc. You know how it goes. Its repeated ad infinitum across the photographic internet. Usually of course by people who haven't used them.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The problem is that nobody told Sony about this. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Along with the 16mm f/2.8 pancake, the lens that comes in for a serious trashing every time anyone mentions it, is the 18-55mm kit zoom. I'm currently using the black one that came with my second NEX-7. This morning I was editing some pictures taken with it and yet again I'm really impressed by it.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Its actually very good, in fact I'd go further than that, its really excellent. Its sharp, processed in Photoshop CS6 it has NO, I'll repeat that, NO CA or fringing. Its sharp across the frame, unless its used wide open. it has excellent colour rendition and the IS system works a treat. Whats not to like? </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I sold my previous two samples. Because I believed that the 18-200mm lens would be better and more useful. Well we all make mistakes I guess. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">So the next time you read someone bashing this lens, remember that there is one lone voice in the wilderness, i.e. me, saying something different. But then what do I know? I just sell the pictures I take with it.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/7063908639/" title="Sony NEX-7 18-55mm kit zoom lens by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="Sony NEX-7 18-55mm kit zoom lens" height="333" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5120/7063908639_b27beded39.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/7063908185/" title="Sony NEX-7 18-55mm kit zoom lens by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="Sony NEX-7 18-55mm kit zoom lens" height="500" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5160/7063908185_37967ea0dd.jpg" width="333" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/6917829654/" title="Sony NEX-7 18-55mm kit zoom lens by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="Sony NEX-7 18-55mm kit zoom lens" height="333" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5319/6917829654_6ab6627214.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/7063906667/" title="Sony NEX-7 18-55mm kit zoom lens by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="Sony NEX-7 18-55mm kit zoom lens" height="500" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7113/7063906667_3180066488.jpg" width="333" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>N.B. to see more on the cameras and lenses featured in this post click on the relevant labels (tags and keywords) below.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><i>All original material on this blog is © Soundimageplus</i><br /><i>For comment and discussion - join us over at Google+</i><br /><i><a href="https://plus.google.com/104558599624253816184/posts">https://plus.google.com/104558599624253816184/posts</a></i><br /><br /><i>soundimageplus website - <a href="http://web.me.com/davidmartynhughes/Site/home.html" target="_blank">http://web.me.com/davidmartynhughes/Site/home.html </a></i><br /><i>follow on twitter - <a href="http://twitter.com/#%21/soundimageplus">http://twitter.com/#!/soundimageplus</a></i><br /><i>follow on facebook - <a href="http://www.facebook.com/soundimageplus">http://www.facebook.com/soundimageplus</a></i><br /><i>soundimageplus on flickr - <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/</a></i><br /><i>soundimageplus blog readers pictures group - <a href="http://www.flickr.com/groups/1705334@N24/" target="_blank">http://www.flickr.com/groups/1705334@N24/ </a></i><br /><i>soundimageplus on YouTube - <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/soundimageplus">http://www.youtube.com/user/soundimageplus</a></i><br /><i>soundimageplus on Vimeo - <a href="http://vimeo.com/user1050904/videos">http://vimeo.com/user1050904/videos</a></i>davidmartynhugheshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13254354021575778255noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5425834970215923505.post-85365379188529036572012-04-09T02:44:00.000-07:002012-04-15T21:51:26.246-07:00FUJI X-PRO 1 or Sony NEX-7 - which one would I choose<div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/7059821521/" title="Fuji X-Pro 1 35mm f/1.4 lens Sony NEX-7 Zeiss 24mm f/1.8 lens by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="Fuji X-Pro 1 35mm f/1.4 lens Sony NEX-7 Zeiss 24mm f/1.8 lens" height="500" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5448/7059821521_310c3556ae.jpg" width="332" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">Fuji X-Pro 1 35mm f/1.4 lens Sony NEX-7 Zeiss 24mm f/1.8 lens </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/7059821777/" title="Fuji X-Pro 1 35mm f/1.4 lens Sony NEX-7 Zeiss 24mm f/1.8 lens by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="Fuji X-Pro 1 35mm f/1.4 lens Sony NEX-7 Zeiss 24mm f/1.8 lens" height="330" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7203/7059821777_53ff827138.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">Fuji X-Pro 1 35mm f/1.4 lens Sony NEX-7 Zeiss 24mm f/1.8 lens </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I must emphasise that anything that I write here is very much detailing my own personal preferences. I am making no recommendations as to what your decisions might be, and any comments I make should be read with that in mind.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">You'll probably not be surprised from what I've written earlier that if I had to choose only one of these two cameras, then I would choose the NEX-7. Its a much better handling and performing camera with 50% more pixels, its cheaper, it has more lenses available and its definitely more "quirk-free" than the X-Pro 1. In terms of image quality the extra size has to be balanced out by the superior definition of the Fuji, its vastly superior high ISO performance and its seriously good jpgs.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">As someone who shoots predominately at low ISO's, the Sony makes more sense for me. From my experiences with it so far its a reliable camera, it has AF that works ALL the time, excellent metering and in terms of ease of use and responsiveness, there is little I can fault it on.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">So where does the Fuji fit into what I do?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">To me its somewhat of a "luxury" camera. Its great strength and the reason I would keep it and use it is the image quality. Its a quality that is quite special and somewhat unique. And though I'm keen to show that the Sony has lots of advantages for me in picture taking situations, there is no doubt that the Fuji with its ready to go jpgs. certainly has an advantage for my post-processing timetable.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In commercial terms there is no particular advantage from using the Fuji. The marginally improved quality of the files is somewhat irrelevant in the picture library business. People buy my images on what they are like as small thumbnails, and there would be no difference in terms of the print and web uses that my images get used for. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">To a large extent its for me to use, which with manual focus lenses I enjoy very much. Less so with the noisy clunky AF lens that I have. In use and feel it is very similar to my Leica M9. The focusing is obviously different but using it, I've been very much reminded of what the M9 was like. I always enjoyed that experience, but at the present time I have no wish to buy a Leica again. That may change in the future, but at the moment I'm not planning it. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">There is also the possibility that the Fuji may lead me into some different ways of creating pictures. With its low light abilities, certainly way beyond what the M9 is capable of, I could think about some different subject matter. Using it as a manual focus camera, it does become a pretty quiet, unobtrusive camera and I would like to attempt some of those "Cartier-Bresson moments" from time to time.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">One of my favourite S/H dealers has a few Voigtlander 15mm m-mount lenses for sale at a reasonable price and I was planning to get one of those. This is a lens that can be very successfully zone-focused and is a lens capable of producing an enormous amount of depth of field. There is a Canadian photographer on flickr who I think uses the lens very well. Incidentally with a NEX-7. <a href="http://www.flickr.com/search/?w=39202243@N02&q=15mm">http://www.flickr.com/search/?w=39202243@N02&q=15mm</a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">So its a camera that by the very nature of its "eccentricities" could possibly, and I do empasise that these are only possibilities, enlarge the scope of what I attempt photographically. It is to seen whether I actually give this a go and certainly there is most definitely a question mark as to how successful I would be at it, but I'm certainly wanting to try to move out of my "comfort zone."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I'll write more about this when I get the outfit sorted. My m-mount adapter is taking a long time to arrive, so I can't get into trials and tests with my other Voigtlander lenses until that arrives. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I guess the main problem with having a go at being a "street photographer" or something like that is that I'll have to go and find some streets!! There aren't too many of them around here, country lanes yes, but the mean streets of the urban jungle are a way away, and its some time since I walked around them armed with a camera and an intent to record them.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It may or may not be a success, but it might be interesting.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/7059822013/" title="Fuji X-Pro 1 35mm f/1.4 lens Sony NEX-7 Zeiss 24mm f/1.8 lens by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="Fuji X-Pro 1 35mm f/1.4 lens Sony NEX-7 Zeiss 24mm f/1.8 lens" height="500" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7124/7059822013_2b0296c4f9.jpg" width="485" /></a> </div><div style="text-align: center;">Fuji X-Pro 1 35mm f/1.4 lens Sony NEX-7 Zeiss 24mm f/1.8 lens</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/6913738208/" title="Fuji X-Pro 1 35mm f/1.4 lens Sony NEX-7 Zeiss 24mm f/1.8 lens by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="Fuji X-Pro 1 35mm f/1.4 lens Sony NEX-7 Zeiss 24mm f/1.8 lens" height="500" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7202/6913738208_cbc4573ba8.jpg" width="332" /></a> </div><div style="text-align: center;">Fuji X-Pro 1 35mm f/1.4 lens Sony NEX-7 Zeiss 24mm f/1.8 lens</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>N.B. to see more on the cameras and lenses featured in this post click on the relevant labels (tags and keywords) below.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><i>All original material on this blog is © Soundimageplus</i><br /><i>For comment and discussion - join us over at Google+</i><br /><i><a href="https://plus.google.com/104558599624253816184/posts">https://plus.google.com/104558599624253816184/posts</a></i><br /><br /><i>soundimageplus website - <a href="http://web.me.com/davidmartynhughes/Site/home.html" target="_blank">http://web.me.com/davidmartynhughes/Site/home.html </a></i><br /><i>follow on twitter - <a href="http://twitter.com/#%21/soundimageplus">http://twitter.com/#!/soundimageplus</a></i><br /><i>follow on facebook - <a href="http://www.facebook.com/soundimageplus">http://www.facebook.com/soundimageplus</a></i><br /><i>soundimageplus on flickr - <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/</a></i><br /><i>soundimageplus blog readers pictures group - <a href="http://www.flickr.com/groups/1705334@N24/" target="_blank">http://www.flickr.com/groups/1705334@N24/ </a></i><br /><i>soundimageplus on YouTube - <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/soundimageplus">http://www.youtube.com/user/soundimageplus</a></i><br /><i>soundimageplus on Vimeo - <a href="http://vimeo.com/user1050904/videos">http://vimeo.com/user1050904/videos</a></i>davidmartynhugheshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13254354021575778255noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5425834970215923505.post-79758853599832561692012-04-08T04:57:00.000-07:002012-04-15T21:51:26.258-07:00NEW DESIGN<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibAJREr8n_6wwIwN1bkDvjSY3yi0XlGLIf_dhM2kkTSeNbd8-cMfmPjjqlmTlE0Q1PX43x5ZGIywo6bqNWiFCTCPM-OhBeuSwRo1FGAPS_2H59xOrfDo8PMhNk3xJTXZo3NKRKyfHVVXAA/s1600/Screen+shot+2012-04-08+at+12.51.57.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="153" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibAJREr8n_6wwIwN1bkDvjSY3yi0XlGLIf_dhM2kkTSeNbd8-cMfmPjjqlmTlE0Q1PX43x5ZGIywo6bqNWiFCTCPM-OhBeuSwRo1FGAPS_2H59xOrfDo8PMhNk3xJTXZo3NKRKyfHVVXAA/s320/Screen+shot+2012-04-08+at+12.51.57.png" width="320" /></a></div><br />I've decided to go with a radical new design for the blog. Several sites who link here have talked about the difficulties of finding the component posts of a review or particular topic in the right order. With this new dynamic view option, you have the choice to select a layout that you as a reader prefer.<br /><br />I'll see how it goes.<br /><br /><i>All original material on this blog is © Soundimageplus </i><br /><i>For comment and discussion - join us over at Google+</i><br /><i><a href="https://plus.google.com/104558599624253816184/posts">https://plus.google.com/104558599624253816184/posts</a></i><br /><br /><i>soundimageplus website - <a href="http://web.me.com/davidmartynhughes/Site/home.html" target="_blank">http://web.me.com/davidmartynhughes/Site/home.html </a></i><br /><i>follow on twitter - <a href="http://twitter.com/#%21/soundimageplus">http://twitter.com/#!/soundimageplus</a></i><br /><i>follow on facebook - <a href="http://www.facebook.com/soundimageplus">http://www.facebook.com/soundimageplus</a></i><br /><i>soundimageplus on flickr - <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/</a></i><br /><i>soundimageplus on YouTube - <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/soundimageplus">http://www.youtube.com/user/soundimageplus</a></i><br /><i>soundimageplus on Vimeo - <a href="http://vimeo.com/user1050904/videos">http://vimeo.com/user1050904/videos</a></i><br /><a href="http://www.blogger.com/"><span id="goog_301356885"></span></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_301356887"></a>davidmartynhugheshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13254354021575778255noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5425834970215923505.post-76713894825229954822012-04-08T03:06:00.000-07:002012-04-15T21:51:26.267-07:00Mike Kobal on the Fuji X-Pro 1 - "Just Focus Baby, Please"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.mikekobal.com/blog/?p=4052" target="_blank"><img border="0" height="550" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHoBIF07qYPi0OC2B7Kj74hgAEOy_KAon-MZaK2Ft9QIjvscB-KgdEXcCqM_ob4Vmg1FoubyVzL6Y7c7kFCQOmYUF4AO5A8GKR9UHLAUR0sMSHyvGNDc-RNiu_SiiUptXQ0sjSH-G4SFn7/s640/Screen+shot+2012-04-08+at+11.02.57.png" width="640" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.mikekobal.com/blog/?p=4052">http://www.mikekobal.com/blog/?p=4052</a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">See its not just me, or Steve Huff, or everybody else who doesn't owe part or all of their income to a certain Japanese company named after a mountain.<br /><br /><i>All original material on this blog is © Soundimageplus </i><br /><i>For comment and discussion - join us over at Google+</i><br /><i><a href="https://plus.google.com/104558599624253816184/posts">https://plus.google.com/104558599624253816184/posts</a></i><br /><br /><i>soundimageplus website - <a href="http://web.me.com/davidmartynhughes/Site/home.html" target="_blank">http://web.me.com/davidmartynhughes/Site/home.html </a></i><br /><i>follow on twitter - <a href="http://twitter.com/#%21/soundimageplus">http://twitter.com/#!/soundimageplus</a></i><br /><i>follow on facebook - <a href="http://www.facebook.com/soundimageplus">http://www.facebook.com/soundimageplus</a></i><br /><i>soundimageplus on flickr - <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/</a></i><br /><i>soundimageplus on YouTube - <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/soundimageplus">http://www.youtube.com/user/soundimageplus</a></i><br /><i>soundimageplus on Vimeo - <a href="http://vimeo.com/user1050904/videos">http://vimeo.com/user1050904/videos</a></i></div>davidmartynhugheshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13254354021575778255noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5425834970215923505.post-27267004402029054612012-04-08T02:54:00.000-07:002012-04-15T21:51:26.277-07:00Whats on the shelf?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhx6NSA-yFSONQXbujBqooOfwYhyphenhyphenuBujrY-VL0BOd1VdiE3DwZnBUjIHeas-_e-Xjly4Lxztv9vlDBMtGr4kXAAje0p66uSMnauTg7CkLo8xc4DUv_k0aWC78MsXO3FDAfsYddxG_PNIOgp/s1600/IMG-20120408-00191.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="136" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhx6NSA-yFSONQXbujBqooOfwYhyphenhyphenuBujrY-VL0BOd1VdiE3DwZnBUjIHeas-_e-Xjly4Lxztv9vlDBMtGr4kXAAje0p66uSMnauTg7CkLo8xc4DUv_k0aWC78MsXO3FDAfsYddxG_PNIOgp/s640/IMG-20120408-00191.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Left to Right > Panasonic GX1 Olympus 12mm f/2 lens, Olympus E-P2 45mm f/1.8 lens, Panasonic 20mm f/1.7 lens, Olympus E-PL3 12-50mm zoom lens, Fuji X-Pro 1 35mm f/1.4 lens, Panasonic 20mm f/3.5 lens (Nikon mount), Sony NEX-5n 18-55mm zoom lens, Voigtlander 75mm f/2.7 Heliar lens, Sony NEX-7 Zeiss 24mm f/1.8 lens, Sony e-mount 55-210mm zoom lens, Sony NEX-7 Voigtlander 35mm f/1.2 Nokton. </div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">So entirely E.V.I.L / Mirrorless / CSC. As per usual, more than I need, less than I would like to own. The advantage of not owning a Leica M9 or some large DSLR + lenses is that I can afford to have more of this stuff. The price of the M9 alone covers most of the cost of the bodies. There's a fair amount of interchangeability here with the m-mount lenses and the Nikon fit Voigtlander useable on all of the bodies. I'm still waiting on a couple of adapters to arrive to make that possible, but its a useful consequence of these mirrorless cameras.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I had planned to maybe trim this down somewhat, but currently I'm looking to hang on to all as long as I'm able. I get different things from each, and its a bit like having a selection of different musical instruments to work with. Because the sensor is included in digital cameras its equivalent to having 7 cameras loaded with different films, though I do have two identical cameras with the NEX-7's. </div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The NEX-7's are the most used cameras, and if I could only have one that thats what I would keep. The Fuji is obviously new, and despite its (many) flaws and quirks, I do like it. Though its going to get used almost exclusively with MF lenses. The two Pens are my little indulgence. They produce the smallest files, and if I'm honest, the worst image quality of all of these, but I love them dearly and they are capable of producing a decent high-res stitched image, and I certainly sell a lot of pictures taken with them. </div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The one I've used the least is the Panasonic GX1, and I'm in the process of changing that. One of the reasons I've used it so little, is I find it uncomfortable to handle. Its just a bit too small. The Olympus E-PL3 handling has improved somewhat with the leather half-case, so I've just ordered something similar for the GX1, to see if bulking it up a bit makes it more comfortable. I would like to use it more as when I've worked with it in the past, I've really liked what I've seen.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">All of them have a slightly different character and using each of them makes me work in a slightly different way. This is actually quite useful, taking as many pictures as I do. I work again and again in the same locations and its useful to have a combination that gives me a different way to produce pictures. </div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I do have this protestant ethic type guilt, that makes me think that I should really be working with just a couple of cameras and of course there is the fundemental notion that of course the pictures are more important than the gear, but it is stimulating to use different combinations and see where that leads me. There's the famous Snowdon quote about always taking something that you haven't used before on every job, and while it might sound somewhat unprofessional, it is important to "freshen up" my approach whenever I can. I do take different type pictures with different body / lens combinations and the more I can make every trip a bit of an "adventure" the more I like it.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Often you see all sorts of reasons given by photographers to justify the amount of gear they own. But ultimately it comes down to what we want to use rather than what we need. I have no children who will go without food if I buy another camera, and at the moment I can afford to do that without having the furniture removed by the bailiffs, so why not. I spend very little on anything else and as I've written before, being a sad photo geek, I spend nothing on drink, drugs, gourmet food or going out "enjoying myself". Though the concept of spending an evening in a noisy, crowded environment pouring overpriced alcohol down my throat is hardly my definition of enjoyment. </div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">So I'm happy to currently indulge myself. I could possibly pretend and attempt to convince you that all of these were necessary for a full realisation of my artistic vision or some such twaddle, but they aren't so I won't. Its enough for me that I enjoy using them, and enjoy looking at results. It would worry me much more if either of those two activities became less fun than they are now. Then I really would be in trouble!<br /><br /><i>All original material on this blog is © Soundimageplus </i><br /><i>For comment and discussion - join us over at Google+</i><br /><i><a href="https://plus.google.com/104558599624253816184/posts">https://plus.google.com/104558599624253816184/posts</a></i><br /><br /><i>soundimageplus website - <a href="http://web.me.com/davidmartynhughes/Site/home.html" target="_blank">http://web.me.com/davidmartynhughes/Site/home.html </a></i><br /><i>follow on twitter - <a href="http://twitter.com/#%21/soundimageplus">http://twitter.com/#!/soundimageplus</a></i><br /><i>follow on facebook - <a href="http://www.facebook.com/soundimageplus">http://www.facebook.com/soundimageplus</a></i><br /><i>soundimageplus on flickr - <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/</a></i><br /><i>soundimageplus on YouTube - <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/soundimageplus">http://www.youtube.com/user/soundimageplus</a></i><br /><i>soundimageplus on Vimeo - <a href="http://vimeo.com/user1050904/videos">http://vimeo.com/user1050904/videos</a></i></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></div>davidmartynhugheshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13254354021575778255noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5425834970215923505.post-73118958348949746642012-04-07T22:53:00.000-07:002012-04-15T21:51:26.287-07:00Why are cameras flawed?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.luminous-landscape.com/essays/jaccuse.shtml" target="_blank"><img border="0" height="410" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTBxz9XLDEpCSBYMIWH4lFFzHGgObPEdUHa8fnA4jPU8eBJBw3Tap47f_uI_Q2qUay_a3aF2tHhT3KOnYvkZ4OX5wEe9K7HD85RJD774zjVpFHhVBeHJZh8CeNTezekubpkAxn8MrCqRla/s640/Screen+shot+2012-04-08+at+06.39.16.png" width="640" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.luminous-landscape.com/essays/jaccuse.shtml">http://www.luminous-landscape.com/essays/jaccuse.shtml</a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: left;">I was given this link by a contact on Google+. Its an essay by Michael Reichmann on Luminous Landscape and its well worth reading. </div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: left;">Interesting comments from Michael:-</div><i>"I have some small experience working with camera makers. From time to time over the years I have acted as a consultant (<i>sometimes paid, sometimes not</i>) on camera design and alpha testing. From this experience I have learned that camera makers rarely ask for early input on new designs with anyone outside their senior engineering and product management team. As a consequence, unless the company has serious photographic enthusiasts among this in-group, small but important details important to working photographers can be overlooked, often too late to be corrected until after first shipment.</i><br /><br /><i>I can think of only a couple of European and Japanese camera makers where I know that there are serious photographic enthusiasts at senior levels, and it shows. These companies rarely release products with major feature/function design flaws, and when they do they are quick to make amends."</i><br /><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: left;">All I would add is that if I send out pictures that aren't "finished" or are flawed in some way then they get sent back pretty damn quick. Maybe we are all too impatient to get the "next big thing" that the camera manufacturers assume we will put up with these flawed products. Perhaps we should all be a little more pro-active and start refusing to accept this. If we used our wallets to express our opinions then maybe they might start to take some notice.<br /><br /><i>All original material on this blog is © Soundimageplus </i><br /><i>For comment and discussion - join us over at Google+</i><br /><i><a href="https://plus.google.com/104558599624253816184/posts">https://plus.google.com/104558599624253816184/posts</a></i><br /><br /><i>soundimageplus website - <a href="http://web.me.com/davidmartynhughes/Site/home.html" target="_blank">http://web.me.com/davidmartynhughes/Site/home.html </a></i><br /><i>follow on twitter - <a href="http://twitter.com/#%21/soundimageplus">http://twitter.com/#!/soundimageplus</a></i><br /><i>follow on facebook - <a href="http://www.facebook.com/soundimageplus">http://www.facebook.com/soundimageplus</a></i><br /><i>soundimageplus on flickr - <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/</a></i><br /><i>soundimageplus on YouTube - <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/soundimageplus">http://www.youtube.com/user/soundimageplus</a></i><br /><i>soundimageplus on Vimeo - <a href="http://vimeo.com/user1050904/videos">http://vimeo.com/user1050904/videos</a></i></div>davidmartynhugheshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13254354021575778255noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5425834970215923505.post-57433655778251989162012-04-07T02:26:00.000-07:002012-04-15T21:51:26.298-07:00Fuji X-Pro 1 - Silkypix - is it any good?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihcfE-KdyMpGpUyV5Yhmp5KwOJmICNuSPXpF0gO1CTe9ZSwoY4xsmToixKqkblwrF8R6J2hJNZg9t3JczxrQcbGdOpUOV1hJ_eu3SPs4aporq662_rDsleyHSzVMgMQvQP1Nbhwef5T3ut/s1600/Screen+shot+2012-04-07+at+07.14.11.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="520" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihcfE-KdyMpGpUyV5Yhmp5KwOJmICNuSPXpF0gO1CTe9ZSwoY4xsmToixKqkblwrF8R6J2hJNZg9t3JczxrQcbGdOpUOV1hJ_eu3SPs4aporq662_rDsleyHSzVMgMQvQP1Nbhwef5T3ut/s640/Screen+shot+2012-04-07+at+07.14.11.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Silkypix seem to have got themselves the contract to provide bundled raw processing software for several camera brands. Panasonic, Pentax and now Fuji are ones that I know of. There is talk that Adobe and Fuji have reached some impasse in Adobe Camera Raw providing support for the X-Pro 1, and hopefully that has been resolved. However, if it hasn't been, or if this support is delayed, we may all be stuck with Silkypix for a while.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I've actually always quite liked it. Its relatively simple, and I've found nothing that causes me frustration. It doesn't have the finesse and subtlety that Abobe provides, but for the most part it does the job. It slows down my workflow, which is why I'm not keen on it, and the X-Pro 1 jpgs. are so good, I've been ignoring it somewhat. </div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">My preference has always been for fairly simple conversions anyway, and it works OK for that. I'm not convinced by the sharpening parameters and I haven't really been able to get out what I suspect is lurking in these Fuji files in terms of sharpness. However, I'm not convinced that its quite as bad as some make out. </div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Having said that the sooner I get Photoshop / ACR support for these files, the happier I will be.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">These below are using the "Fine street" preset plus a bit of tweaking. The files are a marginal improvement on the jpgs. in terms of balance, but virtually no difference in sharpness. </div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/7053032445/" title="Fuji X-Pro1 Voigtlander 20mm f/3.5 lens by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="Fuji X-Pro1 Voigtlander 20mm f/3.5 lens" height="365" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5079/7053032445_2b6f160461.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;">Fuji X-Pro1 Voigtlander 20mm f/3.5 lens</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/7053032927/" title="Fuji X-Pro1 Voigtlander 20mm f/3.5 lens by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="Fuji X-Pro1 Voigtlander 20mm f/3.5 lens" height="377" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7089/7053032927_2150d919d1.jpg" width="500" /></a> </div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;">Fuji X-Pro1 Voigtlander 20mm f/3.5 lens<br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>All original material on this blog is © Soundimageplus </i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>For comment and discussion - join us over at Google+</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><a href="https://plus.google.com/104558599624253816184/posts">https://plus.google.com/104558599624253816184/posts</a></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>soundimageplus website - <a href="http://web.me.com/davidmartynhughes/Site/home.html" target="_blank">http://web.me.com/davidmartynhughes/Site/home.html </a></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>follow on twitter - <a href="http://twitter.com/#%21/soundimageplus">http://twitter.com/#!/soundimageplus</a></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>follow on facebook - <a href="http://www.facebook.com/soundimageplus">http://www.facebook.com/soundimageplus</a></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>soundimageplus on flickr - <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/</a></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>soundimageplus on YouTube - <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/soundimageplus">http://www.youtube.com/user/soundimageplus</a></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>soundimageplus on Vimeo - <a href="http://vimeo.com/user1050904/videos">http://vimeo.com/user1050904/videos</a></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div></div><br /><br />davidmartynhugheshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13254354021575778255noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5425834970215923505.post-64540664362539102602012-04-06T12:44:00.000-07:002012-04-15T21:51:26.307-07:00Fuji X-PRO 1 - In camera raw processing<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Not something I would normally try, but with only Silkypix to process raw files with, I tried the in-camera raw processing. Its actually rather good. Beefed up the saturation and held back the white on the scratchplate. Still produced a lovely clean image.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/7051524951/" title="Fuji X-Pro1 Voigtlander 20mm f/3.5 lens by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="Fuji X-Pro1 Voigtlander 20mm f/3.5 lens" height="167" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7057/7051524951_1f41357ce8.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;">For full resolution, very large file, click on the image above > flickr > Actions > View all sizes > Original<br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>All original material on this blog is © Soundimageplus </i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>For comment and discussion - join us over at Google+</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><a href="https://plus.google.com/104558599624253816184/posts">https://plus.google.com/104558599624253816184/posts</a></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>soundimageplus website - <a href="http://web.me.com/davidmartynhughes/Site/home.html" target="_blank">http://web.me.com/davidmartynhughes/Site/home.html </a></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>follow on twitter - <a href="http://twitter.com/#%21/soundimageplus">http://twitter.com/#!/soundimageplus</a></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>follow on facebook - <a href="http://www.facebook.com/soundimageplus">http://www.facebook.com/soundimageplus</a></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>soundimageplus on flickr - <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/</a></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>soundimageplus on YouTube - <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/soundimageplus">http://www.youtube.com/user/soundimageplus</a></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>soundimageplus on Vimeo - <a href="http://vimeo.com/user1050904/videos">http://vimeo.com/user1050904/videos</a></i></div></div>davidmartynhugheshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13254354021575778255noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5425834970215923505.post-57936379564572030812012-04-06T05:03:00.000-07:002012-04-15T21:51:26.316-07:00FUJI X-PRO 1 - comparison with Sony NEX-7<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I wanted to do a comparison between the X-Pro 1 and a Sony NEX-7. Difficult because of lens systems and different sensor sizes.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I decided to do it this way. I used the Voigtlander 20mm f/3.5 lens via adapters on both cameras. I used f/11 which is pretty much the lenses optimum aperture. Fuji jpgs. are regarded as being slightly better than the Sony equivalents, so to even it up and also to take account of the fact that the Sony's primary advantage would be seen as the larger file size I decided to upsize the X-Pro 1's jpgs to the same size as the NEX-7.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">So here are 3 files. Please Note:- The full-size versions which you can access by clicking on them > flickr > Actions > View all sizes > Original, are VERY big. </div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/7050390237/" title="Comparison between Sony NEX-7 and Fuji X-Pro 1 - both fitted with Voigtlander 20mm f/3.5 lens by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="Comparison between Sony NEX-7 and Fuji X-Pro 1 - both fitted with Voigtlander 20mm f/3.5 lens" height="167" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5071/7050390237_e810af904d.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;">ISO 200</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/6904308146/" title="Comparison between Sony NEX-7 and Fuji X-Pro 1 - both fitted with Voigtlander 20mm f/3.5 lens by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="Comparison between Sony NEX-7 and Fuji X-Pro 1 - both fitted with Voigtlander 20mm f/3.5 lens" height="167" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7137/6904308146_519c77a893.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;">ISO 1600</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/6904315892/" title="Comparison between Sony NEX-7 and Fuji X-Pro 1 - both fitted with Voigtlander 20mm f/3.5 lens by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="Comparison between Sony NEX-7 and Fuji X-Pro 1 - both fitted with Voigtlander 20mm f/3.5 lens" height="167" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7278/6904315892_32d3a11b17.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;">ISO 6400</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">I'll refrain from any comments here and let you come to your own conclusions.<br /><br /><i>All original material on this blog is © Soundimageplus </i><br /><i>For comment and discussion - join us over at Google+</i><br /><i><a href="https://plus.google.com/104558599624253816184/posts">https://plus.google.com/104558599624253816184/posts</a></i><br /><br /><i>soundimageplus website - <a href="http://web.me.com/davidmartynhughes/Site/home.html" target="_blank">http://web.me.com/davidmartynhughes/Site/home.html </a></i><br /><i>follow on twitter - <a href="http://twitter.com/#%21/soundimageplus">http://twitter.com/#!/soundimageplus</a></i><br /><i>follow on facebook - <a href="http://www.facebook.com/soundimageplus">http://www.facebook.com/soundimageplus</a></i><br /><i>soundimageplus on flickr - <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/</a></i><br /><i>soundimageplus on YouTube - <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/soundimageplus">http://www.youtube.com/user/soundimageplus</a></i><br /><i>soundimageplus on Vimeo - <a href="http://vimeo.com/user1050904/videos">http://vimeo.com/user1050904/videos</a></i></div>davidmartynhugheshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13254354021575778255noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5425834970215923505.post-24856252423633549292012-04-06T01:56:00.000-07:002012-04-15T21:51:26.329-07:00Fuji X-Pro 1 - More with the Voigtlander 20mm<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/6903985112/" title="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 20mm f/3.5 by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 20mm f/3.5" height="333" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5115/6903985112_1fc0905400.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;">All images - Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 20mm f/3.5</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">This works. In fact this works really well. Once I got some decent light, and was able to use the lens stopped down, it really started to turn in some great results. This did however mean getting up early and out the door by 7:30 AM.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/7050075411/" title="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 20mm f/3.5 by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 20mm f/3.5" height="500" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7107/7050075411_efb82ff49d.jpg" width="333" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/7050076361/" title="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 20mm f/3.5 by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 20mm f/3.5" height="500" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5334/7050076361_a72b7a2c66.jpg" width="365" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/7050075839/" title="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 20mm f/3.5 by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 20mm f/3.5" height="386" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7088/7050075839_022deedeb0.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">Fabulous colour, very sharp and with a real "Leica Pop" to the files. The majority of these were taken at f/8 - f/11. Not difficult to achieve with ISO 200 in good light. All were zone focused using the hyperfocal distance scale markings on the lens barrel. For APS-C sensors the general rule is to move it back one. i.e. If I'm using f/11 I set the infinity mark to the f/8 position. </div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">The particular nature of this lens means that this works well. It is a pretty rare lens, and to be honest I don't know of any other lens that would do this, that is small and light. There are some Leica and Zeiss m-mount lenses around this focal length, but they are a bit bulkier, and of course substantially more expensive. There's a Voigtlander screw mount 21mm f/4, but I don't know anything about that.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">This little Voigtlander 20mm is made in Nikon and Canon fits. There was also a Pentax K version, but thats no longer made. I bought it for my NEX-7's and it does a good job on them. It now seems it will do the same on the X-Pro 1. I would say that its not great wide open and does need stopping down to at least f/5.6 for the best results.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">I can't really say how it compares with the Fuji 18mm, since I don't have one and don't have any plans to get one. </div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/7050077627/" title="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 20mm f/3.5 by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 20mm f/3.5" height="500" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5316/7050077627_056f7404ce.jpg" width="389" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/7050077203/" title="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 20mm f/3.5 by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 20mm f/3.5" height="393" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5338/7050077203_ea64b65bf0.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/6903986382/" title="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 20mm f/3.5 by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 20mm f/3.5" height="500" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5347/6903986382_bcd70177f2.jpg" width="333" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/7050076911/" title="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 20mm f/3.5 by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 20mm f/3.5" height="354" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5072/7050076911_905fc64a75.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">The really nice thing about using this lens, is that all the camera chatter and clatter stops. All of a sudden I've got a really quiet, really fast camera. It was a real pleasure to use it in this way and it opens up all sorts of possibilities.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">Though its not something I do, this would work very well for street photography. Setting the aperture at f/11 and the hyperfocal distance at the f/8 mark gives you sharpness from just under 3ft. to infinity. With the X-Pro 1's very impressive high ISO performance, it would be possible to use the camera at ISO 1600 or even ISO 3200 outdoors in daylight, giving a decent shutter speed and good depth of field. Ideal for those in close grab shots. There wouldn't be any need to spend a lot of time using the viewfinder and it would be possible to "shoot from the hip" and all that other wacky stuff that street photographers get up to. The camera in this mode is very quiet and unobtrusive and would certainly be a help if you want to work unoticed.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">This ability to use zone focusing is also very useful for landscape photography in order to get the maximum depth of field. I did that all the time shooting film on my medium format cameras and this would be very useful with the Fuji. I can obviously do this with my NEX cameras and m4/3, but the Fuji's special quality at higher ISO's opens up all sorts of possibilities. Unless of course you like grain and noise.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/7050076655/" title="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 20mm f/3.5 by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 20mm f/3.5" height="500" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5232/7050076655_1bb15592e4.jpg" width="383" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/7050076111/" title="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 20mm f/3.5 by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 20mm f/3.5" height="500" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7186/7050076111_bda40c96e1.jpg" width="377" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/7050076543/" title="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 20mm f/3.5 by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 20mm f/3.5" height="500" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5072/7050076543_d95fb5d869.jpg" width="333" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">Just to say finally, that if you do need to focus using the viewfinder, its relatively easy to do in good light. I was able to focus the 20mm for close-ups even at f/8 and f/11 without problems. Low light is however more of a problem as the screen has a slow refresh rate and tends to "smear" quite a lot. It is far from the best screen / viewfinder I've ever used and certainly not as good as the current Sony or m4/3 EVF's.<br /><br /><i>All original material on this blog is © Soundimageplus </i><br /><i>For comment and discussion - join us over at Google+</i><br /><i><a href="https://plus.google.com/104558599624253816184/posts">https://plus.google.com/104558599624253816184/posts</a></i><br /><br /><i>soundimageplus website - <a href="http://web.me.com/davidmartynhughes/Site/home.html" target="_blank">http://web.me.com/davidmartynhughes/Site/home.html </a></i><br /><i>follow on twitter - <a href="http://twitter.com/#%21/soundimageplus">http://twitter.com/#!/soundimageplus</a></i><br /><i>follow on facebook - <a href="http://www.facebook.com/soundimageplus">http://www.facebook.com/soundimageplus</a></i><br /><i>soundimageplus on flickr - <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/</a></i><br /><i>soundimageplus on YouTube - <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/soundimageplus">http://www.youtube.com/user/soundimageplus</a></i><br /><i>soundimageplus on Vimeo - <a href="http://vimeo.com/user1050904/videos">http://vimeo.com/user1050904/videos</a></i></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><br /></div>davidmartynhugheshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13254354021575778255noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5425834970215923505.post-91839938349400475662012-04-05T06:44:00.000-07:002012-04-15T21:51:26.339-07:00Fuji X-Pro 1 Video<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" mozallowfullscreen="" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/39827102?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="640"></iframe></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">Short video with the X-Pro 1. Not bad, not great, about par for the course really. There's not a lot of options as with many cameras, its just there because it can be.<br /><br /><i>All original material on this blog is © Soundimageplus </i><br /><i>For comment and discussion - join us over at Google+</i><br /><i><a href="https://plus.google.com/104558599624253816184/posts">https://plus.google.com/104558599624253816184/posts</a></i><br /><br /><i>soundimageplus website - <a href="http://web.me.com/davidmartynhughes/Site/home.html" target="_blank">http://web.me.com/davidmartynhughes/Site/home.html </a></i><br /><i>follow on twitter - <a href="http://twitter.com/#%21/soundimageplus">http://twitter.com/#!/soundimageplus</a></i><br /><i>follow on facebook - <a href="http://www.facebook.com/soundimageplus">http://www.facebook.com/soundimageplus</a></i><br /><i>soundimageplus on flickr - <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/</a></i><br /><i>soundimageplus on YouTube - <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/soundimageplus">http://www.youtube.com/user/soundimageplus</a></i><br /><i>soundimageplus on Vimeo - <a href="http://vimeo.com/user1050904/videos">http://vimeo.com/user1050904/videos</a></i></div>davidmartynhugheshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13254354021575778255noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5425834970215923505.post-14985223672059771542012-04-05T06:00:00.000-07:002012-04-15T21:51:26.349-07:00Fuji X-PRO 1 + Voigtlander 20mm<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/7047678815/" title="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 20mm f/3.5 nikon by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 20mm f/3.5 nikon" height="283" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7102/7047678815_fd1ded098f.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">It managed to stop raining enough for me to try some test shots with the Voigtlander 20mm Nikon fit lens on my X-Pro 1. Though the lens performance is not as good as the 35mm f/1.4, it has the advantage of being able to zone focus with it, and it is very easy to use in good light. The manual focusing routine is very easy to get to grips with, and wasn't actually that much slower than using the AF!! As I mentioned yesterday it also means that the camera activity is much reduced and the whole thing is much quieter to use.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">In fact, though I was only shooting for about 20 minutes, it was actually an enjoyable experience, and I realised that finally I had stopped thinking about the camera and what it was doing, and just concentrated on taking pictures. I've included some 100% blowups, though theres nothing particularly special here. </div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">There isn't the same accurate colour as before, which perhaps isn't surprising, since I imagine there is a fair amount of "adjusting" going on with the Fuji / 35mm lens combination.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">However its an encouraging start, and I'm looking forward to getting my m-mount adapter to see how my Voigtlanders perform with that.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/6901585498/" title="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 20mm f/3.5 nikon by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 20mm f/3.5 nikon" height="251" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7194/6901585498_8b989831a8.jpg" width="500" /></a> </div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/7047679933/" title="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 20mm f/3.5 nikon by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 20mm f/3.5 nikon" height="293" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7071/7047679933_65b06da9a0.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/6901582426/" title="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 20mm f/3.5 nikon by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 20mm f/3.5 nikon" height="500" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7039/6901582426_0b71a301e9.jpg" width="356" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><i>All original material on this blog is © Soundimageplus </i><br /><i>For comment and discussion - join us over at Google+</i><br /><i><a href="https://plus.google.com/104558599624253816184/posts">https://plus.google.com/104558599624253816184/posts</a></i><br /><br /><i>soundimageplus website - <a href="http://web.me.com/davidmartynhughes/Site/home.html" target="_blank">http://web.me.com/davidmartynhughes/Site/home.html </a></i><br /><i>follow on twitter - <a href="http://twitter.com/#%21/soundimageplus">http://twitter.com/#!/soundimageplus</a></i><br /><i>follow on facebook - <a href="http://www.facebook.com/soundimageplus">http://www.facebook.com/soundimageplus</a></i><br /><i>soundimageplus on flickr - <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/</a></i><br /><i>soundimageplus on YouTube - <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/soundimageplus">http://www.youtube.com/user/soundimageplus</a></i><br /><i>soundimageplus on Vimeo - <a href="http://vimeo.com/user1050904/videos">http://vimeo.com/user1050904/videos</a></i></div>davidmartynhugheshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13254354021575778255noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5425834970215923505.post-14661276684219821362012-04-04T22:28:00.000-07:002012-04-15T21:51:26.361-07:00Fuji X-Pro 1 - Manual Focus with the f-mount Voigtlander 20mm f/3.5<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/6898950462/" title="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 20mm f/3.5 nikon f mount + KIPON NIK>FK Adapter by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 20mm f/3.5 nikon f mount + KIPON NIK>FK Adapter" height="284" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5193/6898950462_9957a11b54.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;">Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 20mm f/3.5 nikon f mount + KIPON NIK>FK Adapter</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/6898950162/" title="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 20mm f/3.5 nikon f mount + KIPON NIK>FK Adapter by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 20mm f/3.5 nikon f mount + KIPON NIK>FK Adapter" height="348" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7069/6898950162_e2547495f1.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">This looks great. From 20 feet away....... (sorry!) </div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">My first adapter arrived, the Kipon Nikon F > Fuji XP. Its a well made adapter and gives infinity focus. In fact it gives infinity focus where its supposed to, so it does make it possible to use the depth of field markings on the lens barrel to allow use of the hyperfocal distance.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">Using this manual focus lens means that all of a sudden I have a relatively silent camera. There is still some noise changing between screens, but its a lot better.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">Focusing is obviously a lot smoother than the electronic 35mm lens, and it certainly requires a lot less movement. Using the magnification screen works and overall it is a very similar process to using MF lenses on Panasonic m4/3 cameras. Not as good as the Sony focus peaking system but OK.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">As you will see from the samples below, it works fine. I will put together more samples when I'm able to get outside as yesterday it was pouring with rain and I could only work indoors.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/7045045805/" title="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 20mm f/3.5 nikon f mount + KIPON NIK>FK Adapter by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 20mm f/3.5 nikon f mount + KIPON NIK>FK Adapter" height="340" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7069/7045045805_e079c7ffe0.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/6898951240/" title="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 20mm f/3.5 nikon f mount + KIPON NIK>FK Adapter by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 20mm f/3.5 nikon f mount + KIPON NIK>FK Adapter" height="435" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5200/6898951240_798876b32f.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/7045045479/" title="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 20mm f/3.5 nikon f mount + KIPON NIK>FK Adapter by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 20mm f/3.5 nikon f mount + KIPON NIK>FK Adapter" height="411" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5239/7045045479_943ef9e28c.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/7045045195/" title="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 20mm f/3.5 nikon f mount + KIPON NIK>FK Adapter by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 20mm f/3.5 nikon f mount + KIPON NIK>FK Adapter" height="500" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7128/7045045195_9a83d69153.jpg" width="384" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">The lens gives softer results than I've been getting with the 35mm f/1.4, but they look pretty much in line with the samples that I've seen from the Fuji 18mm. The colours the lens produces are not quite so accurate as with the 35mm lens either and there are also a few bits of CA on the raw files, though the jpgs. are very clean. As I said I will post more when I've had a chance to use it "properly".</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">Finally I shot all the above samples at ISO 6400 and this sensor really is incredible in low light.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/6898949846/" title="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 20mm f/3.5 nikon f mount + KIPON NIK>FK Adapter by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 20mm f/3.5 nikon f mount + KIPON NIK>FK Adapter" height="419" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7068/6898949846_f7fe6b83e0.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/6898949358/" title="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 20mm f/3.5 nikon f mount + KIPON NIK>FK Adapter by soundimageplus, on Flickr"><img alt="Fuji X-Pro 1 Voigtlander 20mm f/3.5 nikon f mount + KIPON NIK>FK Adapter" height="369" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7269/6898949358_6caa6cf734.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>All original material on this blog is © Soundimageplus </i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>For comment and discussion - join us over at Google+</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><a href="https://plus.google.com/104558599624253816184/posts">https://plus.google.com/104558599624253816184/posts</a></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>soundimageplus website - <a href="http://web.me.com/davidmartynhughes/Site/home.html" target="_blank">http://web.me.com/davidmartynhughes/Site/home.html </a></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>follow on twitter - <a href="http://twitter.com/#%21/soundimageplus">http://twitter.com/#!/soundimageplus</a></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>follow on facebook - <a href="http://www.facebook.com/soundimageplus">http://www.facebook.com/soundimageplus</a></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>soundimageplus on flickr - <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/</a></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>soundimageplus on YouTube - <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/soundimageplus">http://www.youtube.com/user/soundimageplus</a></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>soundimageplus on Vimeo - <a href="http://vimeo.com/user1050904/videos">http://vimeo.com/user1050904/videos</a></i></div></div>davidmartynhugheshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13254354021575778255noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5425834970215923505.post-42378769307785955862012-04-04T21:58:00.000-07:002012-04-15T21:51:26.371-07:00Fuji X-Pro1 by Steve Huff<a href="http://www.stevehuffphoto.com/2012/04/04/the-fuji-x-pro-1-digital-camera-review-by-steve-huff/">http://www.stevehuffphoto.com/2012/04/04/the-fuji-x-pro-1-digital-camera-review-by-steve-huff/</a><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.stevehuffphoto.com/2012/04/04/the-fuji-x-pro-1-digital-camera-review-by-steve-huff/" target="_blank"><img border="0" height="576" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg60ZkWmPvyFnVIACQa3B_hG4f64_om_Na-cc27_hrlfVjaIyj0c-Z5FGchVLinrFSPze2NcyfMg2vlhHP4iznO-17E0d-0gt7zwXaOoYVwmvc-D8nF6Z-pbM-9nBRiA7BLOjeGZ2dJxtCE/s640/Screen+shot+2012-04-05+at+05.56.13.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><br /><br /><br />I guess Steve is probably having to duck too!!<br /><br />"The X-Pro 1 is MUCH lighter than many of you think it is. When you pick it up the 1st thing you think is “Wow, that is much lighter than I thought it was going to be”. In fact, my 1st impression was “man, this feels cheap”<br /><br />"So while in Vegas testing the camera some of the guys I was with were talking about the speed of the<br />camera and how slow it was with focus. One guy nicknamed it “The X-Slow 1″ and we all laughed. The fact is that the auto focus of this camera is on the slower side. When in low light it is VERY frustrating. I had MANY misses, many hunting moments and a few hits. I missed MANY shots due to the slow focus in evening light around 6-7PM when using the 35 1.4."<br /><br />"I will tell you all up front RIGHT NOW that <b>this is not an M9 nor is it even remotely similar in operation</b>. It feels nothing like an M9, shoots nothing like an M9 and the quality in not equal to an M9. The only area where this beats an M9 is in high ISO, and in this area it slaughters the M, kicks it while it’s down and stomps it before it kicks it across the street. In other areas like build, use, feel, manual focus, simplicity and image quality, the Leica wins. Period."<br /><br /><i>All original material on this blog is © Soundimageplus </i><br /><i>For comment and discussion - join us over at Google+</i><br /><i><a href="https://plus.google.com/104558599624253816184/posts">https://plus.google.com/104558599624253816184/posts</a></i><br /><br /><i>soundimageplus website - <a href="http://web.me.com/davidmartynhughes/Site/home.html" target="_blank">http://web.me.com/davidmartynhughes/Site/home.html </a></i><br /><i>follow on twitter - <a href="http://twitter.com/#%21/soundimageplus">http://twitter.com/#!/soundimageplus</a></i><br /><i>follow on facebook - <a href="http://www.facebook.com/soundimageplus">http://www.facebook.com/soundimageplus</a></i><br /><i>soundimageplus on flickr - <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/</a></i><br /><i>soundimageplus on YouTube - <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/soundimageplus">http://www.youtube.com/user/soundimageplus</a></i><br /><i>soundimageplus on Vimeo - <a href="http://vimeo.com/user1050904/videos">http://vimeo.com/user1050904/videos</a></i>davidmartynhugheshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13254354021575778255noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5425834970215923505.post-90406546164207847822012-04-04T12:44:00.000-07:002012-04-15T21:51:26.381-07:00Fuji X-Pro 1 - Review and conclusion - The Forum Rat version<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The first thing to say about this camera is that it looks really cool. Its black and really old looking. My friend Stanley says at about 20 feet it looks just like one of those Leicas that don't have Leica written on them and they are the most awesome camera you can buy. Its like a rangefinder, and that means its even more cool, because you can look through these tramlines in the viewfinder and find the range. Cool. </div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Whats also great about it is that its a <b>Pro Camera </b>which means you can use it for jobs shooting girls for magazines. Awesome! Stanley says you can get work anywhere with one of these because once people see you holding it then everybody will know you're a <b>Pro Photographer</b>. Thats really great because I always wanted to be a <b>Pro Photographer</b>, and now I can.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The third thing thats great is that its really expensive!! That means its a lot better than cameras that are cheaper. Stanley says it has these prime lenses as well, which are really cool too, because they are black and they have f-stops on them, which shows just how <b>Professional </b>you really are.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I did mention that I'd seen some bad stuff about it being slow and noisy and stuff, but he said no, the forums he was on said the guys who said things like that were just a joke and don't know what they are talking about. Cool. </div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">So there it is, absolutely the coolest most awesome camera you can buy. I totally recommend it. I'm picking mine up tomorrow.<br /><br /><i>All original material on this blog is © Soundimageplus </i><br /><i>For comment and discussion - join us over at Google+</i><br /><i><a href="https://plus.google.com/104558599624253816184/posts">https://plus.google.com/104558599624253816184/posts</a></i><br /><br /><i>soundimageplus website - <a href="http://web.me.com/davidmartynhughes/Site/home.html" target="_blank">http://web.me.com/davidmartynhughes/Site/home.html </a></i><br /><i>follow on twitter - <a href="http://twitter.com/#%21/soundimageplus">http://twitter.com/#!/soundimageplus</a></i><br /><i>follow on facebook - <a href="http://www.facebook.com/soundimageplus">http://www.facebook.com/soundimageplus</a></i><br /><i>soundimageplus on flickr - <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/</a></i><br /><i>soundimageplus on YouTube - <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/soundimageplus">http://www.youtube.com/user/soundimageplus</a></i><br /><i>soundimageplus on Vimeo - <a href="http://vimeo.com/user1050904/videos">http://vimeo.com/user1050904/videos</a></i></div>davidmartynhugheshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13254354021575778255noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5425834970215923505.post-33345251869158470442012-04-04T04:36:00.000-07:002012-04-15T21:51:26.393-07:00Fuji X-Pro 1 - Manual Focusing using the 35mm f1.4 lens<div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyMDDr076C2AszwL6aZ-DiaB_fZ4tNI0NAZgPfjD4kz92OKGFyriFdiUQ0XqS-dxXrnbNZ8IM6lmTTzFVpycbhIw4E8NRdLUE5cADfy6uFxhXCtcP471SdLq9s4mfq56QHl35QDWt_pgAP/s1600/_DSF6487.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="518" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyMDDr076C2AszwL6aZ-DiaB_fZ4tNI0NAZgPfjD4kz92OKGFyriFdiUQ0XqS-dxXrnbNZ8IM6lmTTzFVpycbhIw4E8NRdLUE5cADfy6uFxhXCtcP471SdLq9s4mfq56QHl35QDWt_pgAP/s640/_DSF6487.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: left;"> 1/60th. sec, f/1.4 ISO 200</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">There's a piece from the Dpreview preview of the camera that says:-</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><i>"Manual Focus<br />Unfortunately, the MF complaints we had with the X100 are unchanged with the X-Pro1. In order to check focus you can set the EVF to magnification mode easily enough by clicking-in the rear dial. Yet the camera insists on choosing its own aperture setting for the image preview - chosen presumably to maintain scene brightness in live view - which in some situations can make critical focus effectively impossible.<br />When pointed at a bright scene, for example, the camera will show you a magnified live view with the lens set to a narrow aperture, which of course shows a relatively wide depth of field. But if you actually want to shoot at a wide aperture (f/2.4 for example), you can easily be looking at a scene element that appears sharp in the magnified view but sits beyond the depth of field at the taking aperture. In this case, you'll end up with an out-of-focus image, despite it looking sharp in the magnified focusing view in the EVF. For a camera that is so clearly geared to enthusiasts and professionals, this is a critical misstep.<br />There is a workaround to this problem, although it's far from obvious. If you configure the Fn button for Depth of Field Preview, pressing it before you adjust focus sets the lens to the taking aperture. At this point, clicking in the rear dial for magnified view will allow accurate manual focus. Rather curiously, when set to video mode the camera honors the taking aperture in both normal and magnified live view all of the time, giving full time depth of field preview. I don't see why the camera can't behave this way in still image mode.</i>"</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">See the full review here:-<a href="http://www.dpreview.com/articles/6126592906/first-impressions-using-the-fujifilm-x-pro1/4">http://www.dpreview.com/articles/6126592906/first-impressions-using-the-fujifilm-x-pro1/4</a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSkORv7B4ZVmVG7veeCwVhugeovoiJpQEcxe8MJKhGZL5cO5xl_kMgebJpxDFYey8WFUbbwu_Dj24nHMZQdm0bhebCdASk9zpZvFpwKAWGSEicPnO75ChMINUiUjjUphWCVpvlXQgf5gZl/s1600/_DSF6489.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="550" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSkORv7B4ZVmVG7veeCwVhugeovoiJpQEcxe8MJKhGZL5cO5xl_kMgebJpxDFYey8WFUbbwu_Dj24nHMZQdm0bhebCdASk9zpZvFpwKAWGSEicPnO75ChMINUiUjjUphWCVpvlXQgf5gZl/s640/_DSF6489.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">1/50th. sec. f/1.4 ISO 640</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">So this does work, and I was able to achieve satisfactory and accurate focus every time. However it does have a couple of problems. Firstly it ties up the function button, and if you are planning to use manual focus infrequently, then that button could be allocated to other more important purposes. I would also point out that for a camera thats supposedly "old-school" there are a few too many functions left inside the menu system for my liking.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFWjWrOBwTwFwGmsvRLXT07njojPKe99lLN4o1UGOn9aZIPDao1wLE3jdYT9F2kTm64a6-JpT_3pf97s-tlWLsEYpwDpM6UVaaAYxj6Oe6LOAKgONeRsUSIKQZfy3tMdwYsXEdYZEjK0Mi/s1600/_DSF6494.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="516" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFWjWrOBwTwFwGmsvRLXT07njojPKe99lLN4o1UGOn9aZIPDao1wLE3jdYT9F2kTm64a6-JpT_3pf97s-tlWLsEYpwDpM6UVaaAYxj6Oe6LOAKgONeRsUSIKQZfy3tMdwYsXEdYZEjK0Mi/s640/_DSF6494.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> 1/540th. sec. f/2.8 ISO 200</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The second problem is manually focusing the focus-by-wire 35mm f/1.4. Though you might get the impression that this lens is also "old-school" its not. Its very much a modern electronic lens. There is huge travel on the focus barrel and it needs to be moved much more than what I would normally expect from a MF lens.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">However, it does work if you need it, and the magnification is fine. There are also little problems at narrow apertures and I found f/8 no problem. However the EVF which is what you need to do this isn't that good in low light and there is a lot of flickering which makes it difficult.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Now treat this as you will, but when I was talking to the Fuji rep. at the Focus on Imaging show, in answer to my question about whether the MF system was the same as the X100 and whether there would be a better system for MF, he told me that when Fuji release their own m-mount adapter they will be re-writing the firmware in the camera to allow a better functionality. Hopefully that will be true and if so it might mean that focusing the Fuji lenses manually will become easier. </div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">As Dpreview rightly indicate, this isn't a snapshot camera and manual focus is something many buyers of this camera will be interested in.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5AZ5u8SS5M__d2s6b9E-ZhkQxcMHvZ9hyphenhyphenDHG1EIIR7s0EfRsUSTHJmWRGqXKX82mL1MQNSS7fQEdXevL6iDwYFaCLdjA6Xc7j3OxwRwv1VmMzQPHpZAt0BoV7TxKIijn9VWtM0Na86nZT/s1600/_DSF6493.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="496" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5AZ5u8SS5M__d2s6b9E-ZhkQxcMHvZ9hyphenhyphenDHG1EIIR7s0EfRsUSTHJmWRGqXKX82mL1MQNSS7fQEdXevL6iDwYFaCLdjA6Xc7j3OxwRwv1VmMzQPHpZAt0BoV7TxKIijn9VWtM0Na86nZT/s640/_DSF6493.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">1/160th. sec. f/2 ISO 200</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvL5ZP0L200HN41dqVbfPvm2wmHYp68kTDqIfCwUVoZT5l9MS9tVlL8QTauhUi7Jx35MzOZf54Pl30SLBX2f32pEzTn1lNct0JzbBmRIsMfbFdtirIwet00MwCBBzgbcTFl3yJEbBm3Y4e/s1600/_DSF6492.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="552" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvL5ZP0L200HN41dqVbfPvm2wmHYp68kTDqIfCwUVoZT5l9MS9tVlL8QTauhUi7Jx35MzOZf54Pl30SLBX2f32pEzTn1lNct0JzbBmRIsMfbFdtirIwet00MwCBBzgbcTFl3yJEbBm3Y4e/s640/_DSF6492.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> 1/50th. sec.f/8 ISO 250</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijynVFf04BqDKgXMslm4Xhm0x9iH545jnFzp5o-73LsDYoRYX1XKuAH9uRO7dBMVr39Dnz-pNJQP8TN1NIrfLxF9AHPyCCwSmaDYMQCDS9s9kNfijfUgwqMcMaAnAigR7rEJY_mIgHR7F5/s1600/_DSF6490.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="600" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijynVFf04BqDKgXMslm4Xhm0x9iH545jnFzp5o-73LsDYoRYX1XKuAH9uRO7dBMVr39Dnz-pNJQP8TN1NIrfLxF9AHPyCCwSmaDYMQCDS9s9kNfijfUgwqMcMaAnAigR7rEJY_mIgHR7F5/s640/_DSF6490.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">1/1100th. sec. f/1.4 ISO 200</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIA4dFhdr7i4ORy7MoKhZx324HM7ru8Xu0RKZ54uJrlTKQhqRdWZI7kHX9npvAUTVfItY-wBBxR6TPNAzP26gAhO7EiRKW6UHlljqvCoETTXILcTnuUMa6VIlzgBacSbBgX2KKpagQYxwZ/s1600/_DSF6488.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="588" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIA4dFhdr7i4ORy7MoKhZx324HM7ru8Xu0RKZ54uJrlTKQhqRdWZI7kHX9npvAUTVfItY-wBBxR6TPNAzP26gAhO7EiRKW6UHlljqvCoETTXILcTnuUMa6VIlzgBacSbBgX2KKpagQYxwZ/s640/_DSF6488.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">1/60th. sec. f/1.4 ISO 200</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Finally I would add that the 35mm f/1.4 has once again impressed me with its performance wide open. I think its very good, and it will be interesting to see how it compares with my Voigtlander 35mm f/1.2.<br /><br /><i>All original material on this blog is © Soundimageplus </i><br /><i>For comment and discussion - join us over at Google+</i><br /><i><a href="https://plus.google.com/104558599624253816184/posts">https://plus.google.com/104558599624253816184/posts</a></i><br /><br /><i>soundimageplus website - <a href="http://web.me.com/davidmartynhughes/Site/home.html" target="_blank">http://web.me.com/davidmartynhughes/Site/home.html </a></i><br /><i>follow on twitter - <a href="http://twitter.com/#%21/soundimageplus">http://twitter.com/#!/soundimageplus</a></i><br /><i>follow on facebook - <a href="http://www.facebook.com/soundimageplus">http://www.facebook.com/soundimageplus</a></i><br /><i>soundimageplus on flickr - <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/</a></i><br /><i>soundimageplus on YouTube - <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/soundimageplus">http://www.youtube.com/user/soundimageplus</a></i><br /><i>soundimageplus on Vimeo - <a href="http://vimeo.com/user1050904/videos">http://vimeo.com/user1050904/videos</a></i></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></div>davidmartynhugheshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13254354021575778255noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5425834970215923505.post-13906634408623454672012-04-04T02:29:00.000-07:002012-04-15T21:51:26.405-07:00"Fussy" photographers.<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Several of the criticisms of what I'm writing about the Fuji X-Pro 1 have centred around the fact that some think I'm too "fussy", making something appear more important than it is and generally being over-critical. Its interesting that someone wrote in a thread at Dpreview that they thought clicking aperture blades was commonplace, it was unimportant, and in the devil-may-care attitude I hear and read from many hobbyists (and some professionals too - though not many) "It doesn't bother me, I just get on with taking pictures." </div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I sometimes wonder what some photographers are not bothered by. Its interesting to me what some people are prepared to tolerate, and why they then feel they can then arrogantly inform other photographers as to what matters and what doesn't. Or more accurately and even more arrogantly, tell other photographers what SHOULD matter to them and what shouldn't.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">In writing one of my assessments of the X-Pro 1 I wrote that, regardless of speed, a camera with a "Pro" tag should be able to lock focus on whatever its pointing at. I was informed in a forum that no camera does this, and I should just live with it. Firstly, I beg to differ on the accuracy of that, in that my Sony NEX-7 has never yet, once missed locking on in AF mode. Secondly, why should we put up with it? Shouldn't we all be complaining when things don't work as they are supposed to, and even more galling don't do the things that large budget advertising campaigns assure us that they will do.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The iPhone problem that meant it stopped working when you held it too tightly was apparently answered by Steve Jobs as something like "You are all holding it wrong." Arrogant tosh, as was Canons response to all the complaints about the 1d Mk II and its focusing problems. Their solution was to either pretend it wasn't happening or claim to have fixed it when they hadn't.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The crazy thing is that there are people who go along with this, accept something as faulty and then turn round and criticise others who rightly complain about it.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">So how does this impact on photographic output? Yes I'm fussy, I'm picky, I have demanding standards and yes I'm proud of it. I apply it to the gear I use and I also apply it to the pictures I take. I want the best I am able to afford in the former and produce the best results my abilities allow me to in the latter. In the explosion of imagery that has occured in the wake of digital photography, I see far too many "It'll do" pictures. "It'll do" in terms of composition, "It'll do in terms of exposure and "It'll do" in terms of post-processing. Photographic forums are full of pieces about how the photographer only shoots jpgs., usually accompanied by some justification piece that claims shooting raw isn't any better anyway. They are also full of "Its good enough for me", "You only need X,Y or Z" or "This does what <u><b>I</b></u> need so the rest of you should stop complaining" type attitudes.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Is this acceptance of mediocrity, symptomatic of a general "dumbing-down"? An attitude that elevates reality show cretins to the level of "celebrities", which glorifies the ordinary via social networking sites and rejects things that require commitment, hard work and practice, are challenging and require creativity and insight. </div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I'm often bewildered by why so many people spend so much on the photographic internet when they have such limited ambition. They also seem to be proud of it. They flaunt their "amateurism" for all to see. And amateurism, in this context, has nothing to do with making money. The notion that you only take care with work that makes you money, is also to my mind symptomatic of this attitude. I've known many photographers who have no desire to make photography their profession but who take great care to produce the best they can. You only have to look at the work of <a href="http://www.vivianmaier.com/" target="_blank">Vivian Maier</a> to see what an attitude like that can achieve.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The simple answer to all this is I just don't take any notice of or give any credence to people who "play" at photography. Why should I? If they don't care enough to question what they are using or what they do, who don't seem to seek improvements in either their gear or their picture making and who seem satisfied to churn out endless repetitions of images created almost exclusively with the automatic functions of their camera, why should I care about what they think or what they produce?</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I assume, possibly wrongly, that the people who read this blog are committed totally to photography. I am, and since everything I write is influenced by that, I imagine that anyone else who is interested in what I write must be too. Maybe I've got this totally wrong, however I have no way of knowing either way. </div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">For the most part, this is meant as an entertainment, with the odd serious piece like this popping up from time to time. And yes pieces like this do tend to appear when I read stuff that promotes misinformation, is ill-thought out, rude and self-centred. (Which if you spend time on the right sites, could actually be most of the time!) To me photography isn't an argument, its not a conflict. For example I hate reviews that start X v Y, implying some battle. "Canon takes on Nikon", "The Nikon buries the Canon", "The Sony blows the opposition out of the water". All this B-Movie militaristic rhetoric leaves me cold and I will have none of it. Life fortunately doesn't consist of just winners and losers.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">A background in public service and the arts has left me with what are somewhat old-fashioned attitudes. Notions about the capacity for improvement, that we should all attempt to achieve to our highest potential, to value creativity and commitment and that actually learning how to get the best out of ourselves is something we should all pursue, even though it might take some work and be challenging. I also seem to be unable to take anything on trust. I've never been good at doing what I'm told unless I see a good reason for it and accept the integrity and validity of the reasons I'm being given and trust and respect the person who's giving out the instructions. </div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Consequently, I have a questioning and skeptical attitude to hype, publicity speak and all that entails and generally won't come to a conclusion unless I've "seen for myself". I also have a, probably naive, belief in the possibly of being able to influence things and also try as much as I can to be honest in what I write and say. </div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">When people actually let me loose on students in a classroom, I was known for becoming very frustrated when people didn't at least make some attempt to move forward. I was always keen to encourage ambition, an inquisitive attitude and a sensibility that opened up possibilities, differences and new experiences rather than shutting them down. I also tried to instil an attitude that meant that my students took pride in doing the best that they could and weren't afraid to sometimes fail. I also believe in fostering attitudes that allow the possibility of change, of allowing yourself to be convinced and to question dogma and ill-informed prejudice at every opportunity.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">With this in mind it is surprising how often the internet, supposedly a haven of freedom and possibilities becomes a thought enforcing and often bullying medium. However I see that as no reason to stop doing what I'm doing, and despite occasional bouts of pessimism, I do have a hopeful vision of the future.<br /><br />By writing what I do, I am aware that from time to time I will get criticised. Unfortunately it is the nature of the beast that means that criticism will often be short, sharp and nasty. Well, if thats how it must be, then I may not like it and certainly would never do it myself (unless of course you try to tell me how "creative" lomography is!!) so I guess I will have to have to get used to it.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I do however have one rule which I try to stick to and that is I will never write anything to another person via the web that I wouldn't be prepared to say to them face to face. And yes I do realise that there are people out there who would be only to glad to repeat their vitriolic comments in person, but on the whole I think people are actually more civilised than they sometimes let themselves appear. I can but live in hope. <br /><br /><i>All original material on this blog is © Soundimageplus </i><br /><i>For comment and discussion - join us over at Google+</i><br /><i><a href="https://plus.google.com/104558599624253816184/posts">https://plus.google.com/104558599624253816184/posts</a></i><br /><br /><i>soundimageplus website - <a href="http://web.me.com/davidmartynhughes/Site/home.html" target="_blank">http://web.me.com/davidmartynhughes/Site/home.html </a></i><br /><i>follow on twitter - <a href="http://twitter.com/#%21/soundimageplus">http://twitter.com/#!/soundimageplus</a></i><br /><i>follow on facebook - <a href="http://www.facebook.com/soundimageplus">http://www.facebook.com/soundimageplus</a></i><br /><i>soundimageplus on flickr - <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/45203414@N06/</a></i><br /><i>soundimageplus on YouTube - <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/soundimageplus">http://www.youtube.com/user/soundimageplus</a></i><br /><i>soundimageplus on Vimeo - <a href="http://vimeo.com/user1050904/videos">http://vimeo.com/user1050904/videos</a></i></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></div>davidmartynhugheshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13254354021575778255noreply@blogger.com